s her shape. "Now the saints be good to
this city of Verona," said he, "as to me they have proved not amiss."
This was great praise from Baldassare; his generosity gave it point.
From his pack came a pair of earrings--wagging, tinkling affairs of
silver and coral; next some portentous pins, shining globes like prickly
pears; a coral and bells for Master Niccola, and a _scaldino_ of pierced
brass for the adornment of the house. "Thank you, Baldassare," said
Vanna to her blinking old master; then she kissed him. Before she knew
where she was, before she could say, "Gia!" he put his arm round her and
whispered in her ear. Then she clung to him, sobbing, laughing,
breathing quick; and the rest it were profanation to report.

Verona rubbed its eyes as it came out yawning to its daily work. There
was the open shop, ever the first in the street; there the padrone;
there, by the manger of Bethlehem, were the padrona and the baby, whom
they had last seen huddling from their stones. Vanna wore her colours
that morning; she was rosy like the dawn, she was smiling, she had very
bright eyes. But there was a happy greeting for man or wife who looked
her way; and when La Testolina came peeping to behold the discomfiture
of Baldassare, Vanna's gay looks found her out, and "Buon' giorno, La
Testolina," came more cheerfully from her than it had come from her
husband on the bridge. All the little woman could do was to squat upon
the threshold at her friend's feet and pretend that she was troubled
with spasms.

The crowning proof remains to be told. As La Testolina (who blazed the
story abroad) is reported to have said, you might have drummed the guard
out with her heart-beats. Vanna, by way of weaning her baby, it seems,
was tempting him with gobbets of peach from a wine-glass. She bit a
corner from the peach and tendered it in her lips to the youngster on
her lap. The baby (a vigorous child) made a snap at it like a trout at a
fly, and a gulp so soon as he had it. The peach was hard, the morsel had
many corners,--went down bristling, as it were. Cola had his first
stomach-ache, was hurt, was miserable, prepared to howl. At that moment
La Testolina happened to look at him: she stared, she gasped, she reeled
against the door-post.

"Hey, Mother of Jesus!" she cried; "look at the baby!"

"It was a corner-piece, I'm afraid," said Vanna, with great calmness;
"but the natural juices will thaw it."

"No, no, no! It is not that, woman," her