. And I think he is not a bad old man, and he
wanted to come and sleep on the straw next to the goats, and I made
Monna Lisa say, `Yes, he might,' and he's away all the day almost, but
when he comes back I talk to him, and take him something to eat."

"Some beggar, I suppose. It was naughty of you, Tessa, and I am angry
with Monna Lisa. I must have him sent away."

"No, I think he is not a beggar, for he wanted to pay Monna Lisa, only
she asked him to do work for her instead. And he gets himself shaved,
and his clothes are tidy: Monna Lisa says he is a decent man. But
sometimes I think he is not in his right mind: Lupo, at Peretola, was
not in his right mind, and he looks a little like Lupo sometimes, as if
he didn't know where he was."

"What sort of face has he?" said Tito, his heart beginning to beat
strangely. He was so haunted by the thought of Baldassarre, that it was
already he whom he saw in imagination sitting on the straw not many
yards from him. "Fetch your stool, my Tessa, and sit on it."

"Shall you not forgive me?" she said, timidly, moving from his knee.

"Yes, I will not be angry--only sit down, and tell me what sort of old
man this is."

"I can't think how to tell you: he is not like my stepfather Nofri, or
anybody. His face is yellow, and he has deep marks in it; and his hair
is white, but there is none on the top of his head: and his eyebrows are
black, and he looks from under them at me, and says, `Poor thing!' to
me, as if he thought I was beaten as I used to be; and that seems as if
he couldn't be in his right mind, doesn't it? And I asked him his name
once, but he couldn't tell it me: yet everybody has a name--is it not
true? And he has a book now, and keeps looking at it ever so long, as
if he were a Padre. But I think he is not saying prayers, for his lips
never move;--ah, you are angry with me, or is it because you are sorry
for the old man?"

Tito's eyes were still fixed on Tessa; but he had ceased to see her, and
was only seeing the objects her words suggested. It was this absent
glance which frightened her, and she could not help going to kneel at
his side again. But he did not heed her, and she dared not touch him,
or speak to him: she knelt, trembling and wondering; and this state of
mind suggesting her beads to her, she took them from the floor, and
began to tell them again, her pretty lips moving silently, and her blue
eyes wide with anxiety and struggling tears.

T