owry was not
sufficient to correspond to his wealth, however generous he might be in
dispensing with one. And as she was as firm and determined as she was
gentle and good, she resolutely kept him at arm's length. But firmness
is nothing against fate, and he 'who runs away with nimble feet, in the
war of love at last will beat.' {189}

"Now, if she was indifferent to the young signore, the dark maid-servant
was not, for she had fallen as much in love with him as an evil, selfish
nature would permit her, and she planned and plotted with her mother by
night and by day to bring about what she desired. Now, the old woman,
unknown to all, was a witch, as all wicked women really are--they rot
away with vanity and self-will and evil feelings till their hearts are
like tinder or gunpowder, and then some day comes a spark of the devil's
fire, and they flash out into witches of some kind.

"The young signore had a great love for boating on the Arno, which was a
deeper river in those days; he would often pass half the night in his
boat. Now, the mother and daughter so contrived it that the young
signorina should return very late on a certain night from visiting the
poor, accompanied by the old woman. And when just in the middle of the
Ponte Vecchio the mother gave a whistle, and lo! there came a sudden and
terrible blast of wind, which lifted up the young lady and whirled her
over the bridge into the rushing river underneath.

"But, as fate would have it, the young man was in his boat just below,
and fortune fell down to him, as it were, from heaven; for seeing a form
float or flit past him in the water and the darkness, he caught at it and
drew it into the boat, and truly Pilate's wife was not so astonished when
the roast capon rose up in the dish and crowed as was this boatman at
finding what he had fished up out of the stream.

"There is a saying of a very unlucky contrary sort of man that _casco in
Arno ed arse_ (He fell in the Arno and burnt himself). But in this case,
by luck, the falling of the young lady into the river caused her heart to
burn with love, for so bravely and courteously and kindly did the young
signore behave, conveying her promptly home without a sign of love-making
or hint of the past, that she began to reconsider her refusal, and the
end thereof was a betrothal, by which the mother and daughter were
maddened to think that they had only hastened and aided what they had
tried to prevent.

"Now, it