onghold at Corellia, but there was big, white Argo. Argo alone
would pin any one to the earth.

"Let out the dogs, Adamo," the marchesa would say. "I like to hear
them. They are my soldiers--they defend me."

"Yes, padrona," Adamo would reply, stolidly. "Surely the Signora
Marchesa wants no other. Argo has the sense of a man when I discourse
to him."

So Argo barked and yelped, and tore up and down undisturbed, followed
by the pack in full chase after imaginary enemies. Woe betide the
calves of any stranger arriving at that period of the day at the
villa! They might feel Argo's glistening teeth meeting in them, or
be hurled on the ground, for Argo had a nasty trick of clutching
stealthily from behind. Woe betide all but Fra Pacifico, who had so
often licked him in drawn battles, when the dog had leaped upon him,
that now Argo fled at sight of his priestly garments with a howl!

Adamo, who, after his mid-day meal, required tobacco and repose, would
not move to save any one's soul, much less his body.

"Argo is a lunatic without me," he would observe, blandly, to Pipa, if
roused by a special outburst of barking, the smoke of his pipe curling
round his bullet-head the while. "Lunatics, either among men or
beasts, are not worth attending to. A sweating horse, a crying woman,
and a yelping cur, heed not."

Adamo added many more grave remarks between the puffs of his pipe,
turning to Pipa, who sat beside him, distaff in hand, the silver pins,
stuck into her glossy plaits, glistening in the sun.

When Adamo ceased he nodded his head like an oracle that had spoken,
and dozed, leaning against the wall, until the sun had sunk to rest
into a bed of orange and saffron, and the air was cooled by evening
dews. Not till then did Adamo rise up to work.

Pipa, who, next to Adamo and the marchesa, loved Enrica with all the
strength of her warm heart, sings all day those unwritten songs of
Tuscany that rise and fall with such spontaneous cadence among the
vineyards, and in the olive-grounds, that they seem bred in the
air--Pipa sings all day for gladness that the signorina is going
to marry a rich and handsome gentleman. Marriage, to Pipa's simple
mind--especially marriage with money--must bring certain blessings,
and crowds of children; she would as soon doubt the seven wounds of
the Madonna as doubt this. Pipa has seen Count Nobili. She approves
of him. His curly auburn hair, so short and crisp; his bold look and
gracious smil