"Si, signore."

"I think we had better stay--at any rate till the auction is finished and
we have had something to eat. Then we will go."

"Va bene."

The boy sounded doubtful.

"La povera signora!" he said. "How disappointed she will be! She did want
to speak to me. Her face was all red; she was so excited when she saw me,
and her mouth was wide open like that!"

He made a grimace, with earnest, heart-felt sincerity.

"It cannot be helped. To-night we will explain everything and make the
signora quite happy. Look here! Buy something for her. Buy her a present
at the auction!"

"Signorino!" Gaspare cried. "I will give her the clock that plays the
'Tre Colori'! Then she will be happy again. Shall I?"

"Si, si. And meet me in the market-place. Then we will eat something and
we will start for home."

The boy darted away towards the watercourse. His heart was light again.
He had something to do for the signora, something that would make her
very happy. Ah, when she heard the clock playing the "Tre Colori"! Mamma
mia!

He tore towards the watercourse in an agony lest he should be too late.

* * * * *

Night was falling over the fair. The blue dress and the ear-rings had
been chosen and paid for. The promenade of the beauties in the famous
inherited brocades had taken place with eclat before the church of Sant'
Onofrio. Salvatore had acquired a donkey of strange beauty and wondrous
strength, and Gaspare had reappeared in the piazza accompanied by Amedeo,
both laden with purchases and shining with excitement and happiness.
Gaspare's pockets were bulging, and he walked carefully, carrying in his
hands a tortured-looking parcel.

"Dov'e il mio padrone?" he asked, as he and Amedeo pushed through the
dense throng. "Dov'e il mio padrone?"

He spied Maurice and Maddalena sitting before the ristorante listening to
the performance of a small Neapolitan boy with a cropped head, who was
singing street songs in a powerful bass voice, and occasionally doing a
few steps of a melancholy dance upon the pavement. The crowd billowed
round them. A little way off the "Musica della citta," surrounded by a
circle of colored lamps, was playing a selection from the "Puritani." The
strange ecclesiastical chant of the Roman ice venders rose up against the
music as if in protest. And these three definite and fighting
melodies--of the Neapolitan, the band, and the ice venders--detached
themselves from a