anger would not be deaf, and had fallen into her habitual alternative
of dumb show and shouting.

The invitation was not a disagreeable one, for he had been gnawing a
remnant of dry bread, which had left plenty of appetite for anything
warm and relishing. Tessa watched the disappearance of two or three
mouthfuls without speaking, for she had thought his eyes rather fierce
at first; but now she ventured to put her mouth to his ear again and
cry--

"I like my supper, don't you?"

It was not a smile, but rather the milder look of a dog touched by
kindness, but unable to smile, that Baldassarre turned on this round
blue-eyed thing that was caring about him.

"Yes," he said; "but I can hear well--I'm not deaf."

"It is true; I forgot," said Tessa, lifting her hands and clasping them.
"But Monna Lisa is deaf, and I live with her. She's a kind old woman,
and I'm not frightened at her. And we live very well: we have plenty of
nice things. I can have nuts if I like. And I'm not obliged to work
now. I used to have to work, and I didn't like it; but I liked feeding
the mules, and I should like to see poor Giannetta, the little mule,
again. We've only got a goat and two kids, and I used to talk to the
goat a good deal, because there was nobody else but Monna Lisa. But now
I've got something else--can you guess what it is?"

She drew her head back, and looked with a challenging smile at
Baldassarre, as if she had proposed a difficult riddle to him.

"No," said he, putting aside his bowl, and looking at her dreamily. It
seemed as if this young prattling thing were some memory come back out
of his own youth.

"You like me to talk to you, don't you?" said Tessa, "but you must not
tell anybody. Shall I fetch you a bit of cold sausage?"

He shook his head, but he looked so mild now that Tessa felt quite at
her ease.

"Well, then, I've got a little baby. Such a pretty bambinetto, with
little fingers and nails! Not old yet; it was born at the Nativita,
Monna Lisa says. I was married one Nativita, a long, long while ago,
and nobody knew. O Santa Madonna! I didn't mean to tell you that!"

Tessa set up her shoulders and bit her lip, looking at Baldassarre as if
this betrayal of secrets must have an exciting effect on him too. But
he seemed not to care much; and perhaps that was in the nature of
strangers.

"Yes," she said, carrying on her thought aloud, "you are a stranger; you
don't live anywhere or know anybod