losed her eyes and was muttering. But
Pasotti drummed impatiently on the table with the cards, and play they
must.

Meanwhile the grey rain was creeping slowly towards them, veiling the
mountains, and stifling the _breva_.

The lady's breath returned in proportion as the wind's breath
diminished, and she played resignedly, calmly oblivious to her own gross
mistakes, and her husband's consequent outbursts of rage. When the rain
began to rustle on the boat's awning, on the lifeless waves, which in
the now almost breathless atmosphere, were rolling in against the rocks
of the Tention; when the boatman, judging it best to lower the sail,
took to the oars once more, then, at last, Signora Barborin breathed
freely. "Pin, my good fellow!" she said tenderly, and began playing
_tarocchi_ with a zeal, an energy and an expression of beatitude, which
neither mistakes nor scoldings could trouble.

Many days of _breva_ and of rain, of sunshine and of storm have dawned
and faded away over the Lake of Lugano, over the hills of Valsolda since
that game of cards was played by Signora Pasotti, her husband, the
retired controller of customs, and the big curate of Puria, in the boat
which coasted slowly along the rocky shore between San Mamette and
Cressogno in the misty rain.

The times were grey and sleepy, in keeping with the aspect of sky and
lake, after the _breva_ had subsided, the breeze which had so terrified
Signora Pasotti. The great _breva_[C] of 1848, after bringing a few
hours of sunshine, and striving awhile with the heavy clouds, had
slumbered for three years, allowing one breathless, gloomy, silent day
to follow another in those places where the scene of this humble tale of
mine is laid.

The king and queens of _tarocchi_, the _mondo_, the _matto_ and the
_bagatto_, were imported personages at that time, and in those parts;
minor powers tolerated benevolently by the great, silent Austrian
empire; and their antagonisms, their alliances, their wars, were the
only political questions which might be freely discussed. Even Pin, as
he rowed, eagerly poked his hooked and inquisitive nose into Signora
Barborin's cards, withdrawing it reluctantly again. Once he paused in
his rowing, and let his nose hover above the cards, to see how the poor
woman would extricate herself from a difficult position; what she would
do with a certain card it was dangerous to play, and equally dangerous
to hold. Her husband thumped impatiently on th