e," answered Nanna, confidently and with emphasis. "The girl
says he is hungry to-day. He shall eat beans. They are white beans, too,
and the white are much heavier than the brown."

She lifted the tin cover off the earthen pot and stirred the contents.

"White beans!" grumbled Paoluccio. "And the weather is hot. Do you wish
to kill me?"

"No," answered Nanna quietly. "Not you."

"Do you know what I say?" Paoluccio planted a huge finger on the oaken
board. "That sick butterfly upstairs is tougher than I am. Forty-seven
days of fever, and nothing but bread and water! Think of that, my Nanna!
Think of it! You or I would be consumed, one would not even see our
shadows on the floor! But he lives."

"If he eats the white beans he has finished living," remarked Nanna.

A short silence followed, during which Paoluccio seemed to be
meditating, and Nanna began to ladle the beans out into four deep
earthenware bowls, roughly glazed and decorated with green and brown
stripes.

"You are a jewel; you are the joy of my heart," he observed
thoughtfully, as Nanna placed his portion before him, covered it with
oil, and scattered some chopped basil on the surface.

"Eat, my love," she said, and she cut a huge piece from a coarse loaf
and placed it beside him on a folded napkin that looked remarkably clean
in such surroundings, and emitted a pleasant odour of dried lavender
blossoms.

"Where is the girl?" asked Paoluccio, stirring the mess and blowing upon
it.

As he spoke, the door was darkened, and the girl stood there with a
large copper "conca," the water-jar of the Roman province, balanced on
her head--one of the most magnificent human beings on whom the sun of
the Campagna ever shone. She was tall, and she bent her knees without
moving her neck, in order to enter the door without first setting down
the heavy vessel.

[Illustration: " ... THE DOOR WAS DARKENED, AND THE GIRL STOOD THERE
WITH A LARGE COPPER 'CONCA' ..."]

Her thick dark hair grew low on her forehead, almost black, save for
the reddish chestnut lights where a few tiny ringlets curled themselves
about her small and classic ears. Straight black eyebrows outlined the
snow-white forehead, and long brown lashes shaded the fearless eyes,
that looked black too. She smiled a little, quite unconsciously, as she
lowered herself with the weight and gracefully rose to her height again
after she had entered. One shapely brown hand steadied the conca above,
the other