!' answered she. 'In Tuscany we call it _tinca_.'

_Petrarca._ I too am a little of a Tuscan.

_Assunta._ Indeed! well, you really speak very like one, but only more
sweetly and slowly. I wonder how you can keep up with Signor
Padrone--he talks fast when he is in health; and you have made him so.
Why did not you come before? Your Reverence has surely been at
Certaldo in time past.

_Petrarca._ Yes, before thou wert born.

_Assunta._ Ah, sir! it must have been long ago then.

_Petrarca._ Thou hast just entered upon life.

_Assunta._ I am no child.

_Petrarca._ What then art thou?

_Assunta._ I know not: I have lost both father and mother; there is a
name for such as I am.

_Petrarca._ And a place in heaven.

_Boccaccio._ Who brought us that fish, Assunta? hast paid for it?
there must be seven pounds: I never saw the like.

_Assunta._ I could hardly lift up my apron to my eyes with it in my
hand. Luca, who brought it all the way from the Padule, could scarcely
be entreated to eat a morsel of bread or sit down.

_Boccaccio._ Give him a flask or two of our wine; he will like it
better than the sour puddle of the plain.

_Assunta._ He is gone back.

_Boccaccio._ Gone! who is he, pray?

_Assunta._ Luca, to be sure.

_Boccaccio._ What Luca?

_Assunta._ Dominedio! O Riverenza! how sadly must Ser Giovanni, my
poor Padrone, have lost his memory in this cruel long illness! he
cannot recollect young Luca of the Bientola, who married Maria.

_Boccaccio._ I never heard of either, to the best of my knowledge.

_Assunta._ Be pleased to mention this in your prayers to-night, Ser
Canonico! May Our Lady soon give him back his memory! and everything
else she has been pleased (only in play, I hope) to take away from
him! Ser Francesco, you must have heard all over the world how Maria
Gargarelli, who lived in the service of our paroco, somehow was
outwitted by Satanasso. Monsignore thought the paroco had not done all
he might have done against his wiles and craftiness, and sent his
Reverence over to the monastery in the mountains, Laverna yonder, to
make him look sharp; and there he is yet.

And now does Signor Padrone recollect?

_Boccaccio._ Rather more distinctly.

_Assunta._ Ah me! Rather more distinctly! have patience, Signor
Padrone! I am too venturous, God help me! But, Riverenza, when Maria
was the scorn or the abhorrence of everybody else, excepting poor Luca
Sabbatini, who had always cherished her, and