ou know it."

Black Rag was much struck by the idea and promptly went up to the town
to invest his spare cash in the three numbers, taking his own age for
the third. As luck would have it the two first numbers actually turned
up and he won thirty francs that week, which, as he justly observed,
brought the price of the boat up to eighty. For if he had not sold her
he would never have played the numbers at all, and no one pretended that
she was worth more than eighty francs, if as much.

Then, one morning, San Miniato found Ruggiero waiting outside his door
when he came out. The sailor grew leaner and more silent every day, but
San Miniato seemed to grow stouter and more talkative.

"If you would like to go after crabs this evening, Excellency," said the
former, "the weather is good and they are swarming on the rocks
everywhere."

"What does one do with them?" asked San Miniato. "Are they good to eat?"

"One knows that, Excellency. We put them into a kettle with milk, and
they drink all the milk in the night and the next day they are good to
cook."

"Can we take the ladies, Ruggiero?"

"In the sail boat, Excellency, and then, if you like, you and the
Signorina can go with me in the little one with my brother, and I will
pull while Bastianello and your Excellency take the crabs."

"Very well. Then get a small boat ready for to-night, Ruggiero."

"I have one of my own, Excellency."

"So much the better. If the ladies will not go, you and I can go alone."

"Yes, Excellency."

San Miniato wondered why Ruggiero was so pale.

CHAPTER XI.

Again the mother and daughter were together in the cool shade of their
terrace. Outside, it was very hot, for the morning breeze did not yet
stir the brown linen curtains which kept out the glare of the sea, and
myriads of locusts were fiddling their eternal two notes without pause
or change of pitch, in every garden from Massa to Scutari point, which
latter is the great bluff from which they quarry limestone for road
making, and which shuts off the amphitheatre of Sorrento from the view
of Castellamare to eastward. The air was dry, hot and full of life and
sound, as it is in the far south in summer.

"And when do you propose to marry me?" asked Beatrice in a discontented
tone.

"Dearest child," answered her mother, "you speak as though I were
marrying you by force to a man whom you detest."

"That is exactly what you are doing."

The Marchesa raised her eyebro