d getting
his jacket and hat.

What a transformation it was, making an almost new Maddalena! This
festival dress was really quite wonderful. He felt inclined to touch it
here and there, to turn Maddalena round for new aspects, as a child turns
round a marvellous doll.

Maddalena wore a tudischina, a bodice of blue cotton velvet, ornamented
with yellow silken fringes, and opening over the breast to show a section
of snowy white edged with little buttons of sparkling steel. Her
petticoat--the sinava--was of pea-green silk and thread, and was
partially covered by an apron, a real coquette of an apron, white and
green, with little pockets and puckers, and a green rosette where the
strings met round the supple waist. Her sleeves were of white muslin,
bound with yellow silk ribbons, and her stockings were blue, the color of
the bodice. On her feet were shining shoes of black leather, neatly tied
with small, black ribbons, and over her shoulders was a lovely shawl of
blue and white with a pattern of flowers. She wore nothing on her head,
but in her ears were heavy ear-rings, and round her neck was a thin
silver chain with bright-blue stones threaded on it here and there.

"Maddalena!" Maurice said, at last. "You are a queen to-day!"

He stopped, then he added:

"No, you are a siren to-day, the siren I once fancied you might be."

"A siren, signorino? What is that?"

"An enchantress of the sea with a voice that makes men--that makes men
feel they cannot go, they cannot leave it."

Maddalena lifted the roses a little higher to hide her face, but Maurice
saw that her eyes were still smiling, and it seemed to him that she
looked even more radiantly happy than when she had taken his hands to
spring down to the beach.

Now Salvatore came up in his glory of a dark-blue suit, with a gay shirt
of pink-and-white striped cotton, fastened at the throat with long, pink
strings that had tasselled ends, a scarlet bow-tie with a brass anchor
and the Italian flag thrust through it, yellow shoes, and a black hat,
placed well over the left ear. Upon the forefinger of his left hand he
displayed a thick snake-ring of tarnished metal, and he had a large,
overblown rose in his button-hole. His mustaches had been carefully
waxed, his hair cropped, and his hawklike, subtle, and yet violent face
well washed for the great occasion. With bold familiarity he seized
Maurice's hand.

"Buon giorno, signore. Come sta lei?"

"Benissimo."

"And