her
fellow-servant--either out of pity for his deformity or from natural
sympathy. They treated each other with a good deal of formality,
however; Cucurullo, who was a Neapolitan, addressed her as Donna Pina,
as if she were a lady born, and she usually called him 'Sor Antonino,'
as though he were at least a clerk or a small shop-keeper.

'Tell me,' he said, one evening when they were eating the salad left
over from their masters' supper, 'what is your opinion of this young
gentleman who admires our mistress?'

'What opinion can I have?' asked Pina, picking up a small leaf of
lettuce on her two-pronged iron fork; for she ate delicately, and her
fine manners were Cucurullo's despair.

'This is a wicked world,' he sighed, rather enigmatically.

'If you mean also that Don Alberto is one of those who make it so, I am
inclined to agree with you,' Pina answered. 'I have seen other young
gentlemen like him.'

'You have had great experience of high life, Donna Pina. That is the
reason why I asked your opinion. This young gentleman may be like others
you have known, but besides that he is very powerful in Rome, and can do
what he likes with impunity. He is so much in love with our mistress
that he no longer understands, as we say in the South. He has lost his
senses.'

'But he has his wits left,' observed Pina sharply.

'And he owes a grudge for that scratch in the arm,' added Cucurullo
thoughtfully.

'He does not know who gave it to him.'

'Therefore he means the Lady Ortensia to pay him for it.'

'Yes,' Pina answered. 'That is just like a man. Because he was hurt in
serenading a lady, it must needs be her fault, and she must give
satisfaction! First, he would like to carry her off to some lonely
castle he must have, somewhere in the mountains, and at the end of a
week, or a month, he would turn her out of doors and say it served her
right because he had been wounded under her window. Yes, Sor Antonino,
you may well say that I have some experience of high life!'

Cucurullo heard the bitter note that rang in the last words, and he
partly understood, for he had known her long enough to guess that she
had a sad story of her own.

'We ought to watch the signs for the masters,' he said. 'They see
nothing, hear nothing, and think of nothing but each other. One of these
days the young gentleman will lay a snare and they will step into it
like a pair of sparrows.'

'What can we do?' asked Pina in a dull voice. 'Whatever