of repining! Little
misfortunes are like a rash, which carries off bad humors from a too
robust body. Suppose the storm had laid my head low, and turned up my
toes; what then, eh, little girls?" turning to the group of young
creatures standing with their eyes very wide open at the recital of
the misdeeds of the turbulent wind, and now as suddenly off into a
laugh at the image of the Doctor's decease so represented. "Ah! you
giggling set! Happy you that have no branches to be broken, and no
olive-pickers to pay! _Per Bacco!_ you are well off, if you only
knew it!"

He walked over to where his weeping wife sat, laid his hand on her
head, and stooping, kissed her brow. The girls laughed again.

"Be quiet, all of you! Do you think that only smooth brows and bright
cheeks ought to be kissed? Be good loving wives, and I promise you
your husbands will be blind to your wrinkles. I could not be happy
without the sight of this well-known face; it is the record of
happiness for me. I wish you all our luck, my dears!"

All simpered or laughed, and Martina's brow smoothed.

"Now I see that I can still make you smile at misfortune," continued
the Doctor, "I will tell you something comforting. As I came along, I
met Paolo, the olive-merchant, who offered me a franc more a sack than
he did to any one else, because he knows our olives are of a superior
quality."

Signora Martina smiled rather a grim smile at this compliment to her
olives.

"But I told him," went on Doctor Morani, with a certain look of pride,
"that we were not going to sell; we intended to make oil for
ourselves. And so we will, Martina, with the olives that have been
blown down, hoping the best for those still on the trees. Now let us
talk of something more pleasant. Pasqualina, suppose you tell us a
story; you are our best hand, I believe."

"I am sure, Signor Dottore, I have nothing worth your listening to,"
answered Pasqualina, blushing.

"Tell us about the ghost your uncle saw," suggested another of the
girls.

"A ghost!" cried the Doctor. "Any one here seen a ghost? I wish I
could have such a chance! What was it like?"

"I did not see it myself; I do but believe what my uncle told me,"
said Pasqualina, with a gravity that had a shade of resentment.

"If one is only to speak of what one has seen," urged the prompter of
the uncle's ghost-story, "tell the Padrone of the witch that bewitched
your sister."

"Ah! and so we have witches too?" groaned