motive. Nothwithstanding all the gossip, and the many
ludicrous opinions of her companions, her eyes scarcely turned an
instant from the lugger, on which they seemed to be riveted by a sort of
fascination. Had there been one there sufficiently unoccupied to observe
this interesting girl, he might have been struck with the varying
expression of a countenance that was teeming with sensibility, and which
too often reflected the passing emotions of its mistress's mind. Now an
expression of anxiety, and even of alarm, would have been detected by
such an observer, if acute enough to separate these emotions, in the
liveliness of sentiment, from the more vulgar feelings of her
companions; and now, something like gleamings of delight and happiness
flashed across her eloquent countenance. The color came and went often;
and there was an instant, during which the lugger varied her course,
hauling to the wind, and then falling off again, like a dolphin at its
sports, when the radiance of the pleasure that glowed about her soft
blue eyes rendered the girl perfectly beautiful. But none of these
passing expressions were noticed by the garrulous group around the
stranger female, who was left very much to the indulgence of the
impulses that gave them birth, unquestioned, and altogether unsuspected.

Although the cluster of girls had, with feminine sensitiveness, gathered
a little apart from the general crowd, there were but a few yards
between the spot where it stood and that occupied by 'Maso; so that,
when the latter spoke, an attentive listener among the former might hear
his words. This was an office that Tonti did not choose to undertake,
however, until he was questioned by the podesta, Vito Viti, who now
appeared on the hill in person, puffing like a whale that rises to
breathe, from the vigor of his ascent.

"What dost thou make of her, good 'Maso?" demanded the magistrate, after
he had examined the stranger himself some time in silence, feeling
authorized, in virtue of his office, to question whom he pleased.

"Signore, it is a lugger," was the brief, and certainly the accurate
reply.

"Aye, a lugger; we all understand that, neighbor Tonti; but what sort of
a lugger? There are felucca-luggers, and polacre-luggers, and
bombarda-luggers, and all sorts of luggers; which sort of lugger
is this?"

"Signor Podesta, this is not the language of the port. We call a
felucca, a felucca; a bombarda, a bombarda; a polacre, a polacre; an