--Dr. Carretaji."

"Good," said Peter. "Will you go to the village, please, and ask Dr.
Carretaji if he can make it convenient to call here to-day? Marietta is
not well."

"Yes, Signorino."

"And stop a bit," said Peter. "Are there such things as women in the
village?'

"Ah, mache, Signorino! But many, many," answered Gigi, rolling his dark
eyes sympathetically, and waving his hands.

"I need but one," said Peter. "A woman to come and do Marietta's work
for a day or two--cook, and clean up, and that sort of thing. Do you
think you could procure me such a woman?"

"There is my wife, Signorino," suggested Gigi. "If she would content the
Signorino?"

"Oh? I was n't aware that you were married. A hundred felicitations.
Yes, your wife, by all means. Ask her to come and rule as Marietta's
vicereine."

Gigi started for the village.

Peter went into the house, and knocked at Marietta's bed-room door. He
found her in bed, with her rosary in her hands. If she could not work,
she would not waste her time. In Marietta's simple scheme of life,
work and prayer, prayer and work, stood, no doubt, as alternative and
complementary duties.

"But you are not half warmly enough covered up," said Peter.

He fetched his travelling-rug, and spread it over her. Then he went to
the kitchen, where she had left a fire burning, and filled a bottle with
hot water.

"Put this at your feet," he said, returning to Marietta.

"Oh, I cannot allow the Signorino to wait on me like this," the old
woman mustered voice to murmur.

"The Signorino likes it--it affords him healthful exercise," Peter
assured her.

Dr. Carretaji came about noon, a fat middleaged man, with a fringe of
black hair round an ivory-yellow scalp, a massive watch-chain (adorned
by the inevitable pointed bit of coral), and podgy, hairy hands. But he
seemed kind and honest, and he seemed to know his business.

"She has a catarrh of the larynx, with, I am afraid, a beginning of
bronchitis," was his verdict.

"Is there any danger?" Peter asked.

"Not the slightest. She must remain in bed, and take frequent
nourishment. Hot milk, and now and then beef-tea. I will send some
medicine. But the great things are nourishment and warmth. I will call
again to-morrow."

Gigi's wife came. She was a tall, stalwart, blackbrowed, red-cheeked
young woman, and her name (Gigi's eyes flashed proudly, as he announced
it) her name was Carolina Maddalena.

Peter had to be in and out o