f her head quickly once more, and
met him with a smile.

"Is the beefsteak of mutton ready?" inquired the Scotchman, cheerfully,
with his extraordinary accent.

Annetta ran past him, and returned almost before he was seated, bringing
the food. The girl sat down at the end of the table, opposite the street
door, and watched him as he swallowed one mouthful of meat after
another, now and then stopping to drink a tumbler of wine at a draught.

"You must be very strong, Signore," said Annetta, at last, her chin
resting on her doubled hand.

"Why?" inquired Dalrymple, carelessly, between two mouthfuls.

"Because you eat so much. It must be a fine thing to eat so much meat.
We eat very little of it."

"Why?" asked the Scotchman, again between his mouthfuls.

"Oh, who knows? It costs much. That must be the reason. Besides, it does
not go down. I should not care for it."

"It is a habit." Dalrymple drank. "In my country most of the people eat
oats," he said, as he set down his glass.

"Oats!" laughed the girl. "Like horses! But horses will eat meat, too,
like you. As for me--good bread, fresh cheese, a little salad, a drink
of wine and water--that is enough."

"Like the nuns," observed Dalrymple, attacking the ham of the
'Grape-eater.'

"Oh, the nuns! They live on boiled cabbage! You can smell it a mile
away. But they make good cakes."

"You often go to the convent, do you not?" asked the Scotchman, filling
his glass, for the first mouthful of ham made him thirsty again. "You
take the linen up with your mother, I know."

"Sometimes, when I feel like going," answered the girl, willing to show
that it was not her duty to carry baskets. "I only go when we have the
small baskets that one can carry on one's head. I will tell you. They
use the small baskets for the finer things, the abbess's linen, and the
altar cloths, and the chaplain's lace, which belongs to the nuns. But
the sheets and the table linen are taken up in baskets as long as a man.
It takes four women to carry one of them."

"That must be very inconvenient," said Dalrymple. "I should think that
smaller ones would always be better."

"Who knows? It has always been so. And when it has always been so, it
will always be so--one knows that."

Annetta nodded her head rhythmically to convey an impression of the
immutability of all ancient customs and of this one in particular.

Dalrymple, however, was not much interested in the question of the
baskets.