and care not to know. The wretched cannot frame any plan
or think about the future. Indeed how happy should I feel, were there
no future at all for me!"

"You are talking nonsense, young man; and that must not be. Heyday!"
she exclaimed, as she lifted up the lamp and lookt at him more
narrowly, "why he is a Florentine! That doublet and cape is what I
have not seen this many a day. Well now, this must surely bode me some
good. So the ugly weather has made me a present of a dear guest; for
you must know, my young gentleman, I too am from that blessed land. Ay
Florence! Ah, if one might but once more tread on thy ground and see
thy dear hills and gardens again! And your name, my dear young
gentleman?"

"Antonio Cavalcanti," said the youth, who felt more confidence in the
old dame on finding that she was his countrywoman.

"O what an accent!" cried she almost rapturously: "Cavalcanti! such a
one I too knew some years since, one Guido."

"He was my father," said Antonio.

"And is he no longer alive?"

"No," answered the young man; "my mother too was taken from me a long
time ago."

"I know it, I know it, my dear pretty boy. Ay, ay, it must now be full
fifteen years since she died. Alas yes, it was then, in those
troublous times, that she had to give up the ghost. And your dear
worthy father, he is the only person I have to thank for the judges
not having treated me just like a faggot some years after: they had
somehow got it into their pates that I was a witch, and there was no
avail in denying it. But Signor Guido fought my battle, what with
reason and what with ranting, what with entreaties and what with
threats: so they merely banisht me out of the dear land. And now this
thunderstorm brings me the son of my benefactor into my poor little
cottage. Come, give me your hand on the strength of it, youngster."

Antonio gave it to the old woman shuddering; for now at length he was
able to observe her more distinctly. She grinned at him friendly, and
displayed two long black teeth standing out between her bristly lips;
her eyes were small and sharp, her brow furrowed, her chin long; she
stretcht out two gaunt shrivelled arms toward him; and being
compelled, however loth, to embrace her, he felt the hump which made
her ugliness still more disgusting.

"True!" she said with a forced laugh, "I am not remarkably pretty; I
was not so even in my younger days. There is something whimsical about
beauty; one can never tell o