en! I fancied I caught a footstep in the
passage. Come nearer; bend your head lower, that I may whisper a word
in your ear. Never let Assunta hear you sigh. She is mischievous: she
may have been standing at the door: not that I believe she would be
guilty of any such impropriety: but who knows what girls are capable
of! She has no malice, only in laughing; and a sigh sets her windmill
at work, van over van, incessantly.

_Petrarca._ I should soon check her. I have no notion....

_Boccaccio._ After all, she is a good girl ... a trifle of the wilful.
She must have it that many things are hurtful to me ... reading in
particular ... it makes people so odd. Tina is a small matter of the
madcap ... in her own particular way ... but exceedingly discreet, I
do assure you, if they will only leave her alone.

I find I was mistaken, there was nobody.

_Petrarca._ A cat, perhaps.

_Boccaccio._ No such thing. I order him over to Certaldo while the
birds are laying and sitting: and he knows by experience, favourite as
he is, that it is of no use to come back before he is sent for. Since
the first impetuosities of youth, he has rarely been refractory or
disobliging. We have lived together now these five years, unless I
miscalculate; and he seems to have learnt something of my manners,
wherein violence and enterprise by no means predominate. I have
watched him looking at a large green lizard; and, their eyes being
opposite and near, he has doubted whether it might be pleasing to me
if he began the attack; and their tails on a sudden have touched one
another at the decision.

_Petrarca._ Seldom have adverse parties felt the same desire of peace
at the same moment, and none ever carried it more simultaneously and
promptly into execution.

_Boccaccio._ He enjoys his _otium cum dignitate_ at Certaldo: there he
is my castellan, and his chase is unlimited in those domains. After
the doom of relegation is expired, he comes hither at midsummer. And
then if you could see his joy! His eyes are as deep as a well, and as
clear as a fountain: he jerks his tail into the air like a royal
sceptre, and waves it like the wand of a magician. You would fancy
that, as Horace with his head, he was about to smite the stars with
it. There is ne'er such another cat in the parish; and he knows it, a
rogue! We have rare repasts together in the bean-and-bacon time,
although in regard to the bean he sides with the philosopher of Samos;
but after due exami