and slender pasteboard tube, which was struck slanting across
the window like a wall-gun and pointed down at the sparkling lake, at a
white sail, filled with the _breva_. On the entrance of Pasotti, who
came forward with stooping shoulders, his face suffused with a most
gentle gaiety, the kindly and hospitable old dame hastened to put down
the monstrous pasteboard nose, which she was so fond of poking into the
most distant affairs of others, where her own parchment nose, though it
was long beyond measure, could not reach. She received the Controller as
she might have received a saintly miracle-worker, who had come to remove
her goitre.

"Oh, how kind of you! Dear _Sior Controlor_! Oh, how kind! What a
pleasure! What a pleasure!"

And she made him sit down and nearly suffocated him with her offers of
hospitality.

"A piece of cake! A bit of nut-candy! Dear _Sior Controlor_! A little
wine! A taste of _rosoho_!--You must excuse me," she added, for the
youngster had begun to whine. "He is my little grandson, you know. My
little pet."

Pasotti took a great deal of urging, having not only Don Giovanni's
cherries, but also Gilardoni's beer in his stomach, but finally he was
obliged to yield, and resign himself to gnawing a piece of that accursed
almond cake, while the urchin clung to his grandmother's goitre.

At this the sarcastic rogue said pathetically, laughing in his sleeve
the while: "Poor Signora Cecca! Twice a mother!" When he had enquired
for her husband and for all her descendants even unto the third
generation, he brought forward Signora Teresa Rigey. How was that poor
lady? Bad! Really very bad? But since when had she been worse? Had there
been any cause? Some trouble, perhaps? The old troubles were well known,
but had there been some fresh ones? Perhaps on Luisina's account? About
the marriage? And did Don Franco come to Castello? Ah, not in the
daytime, but perhaps----?

As the patient who is being questioned and examined by the surgeon
searching for the painful, hidden spot, answers ever more briefly, ever
more fearfully as the hand draws nearer and nearer to the point, and
starts and draws back as soon as the spot is touched, so Signora Cecca
answered Pasotti ever more briefly, ever more cautiously, until, at that
"but" which touched the painful spot so delicately, she started,
exclaiming--

"A little more cake, _Sior Controlor_! It is a cake light enough for
young girls."

Pasotti in his heart curs