h her, and repeated
comic verses to her--the one beginning with the "Missipipi," and that
other, ending with the words:

Answered so promptly young Barucaba!

Who may this Barucaba have been, and what had they been asking him?
"_Toa Ba! Toa Ba!_ Barucaba again! Barucaba again!" and once more the
uncle would recite the poetic tale to the child, but there is no one now
to repeat it to me.

This is what Professor Gilardoni was discussing in his timid, gentle
voice with Luisa; the Professor, grown just a little older, just a
little more bald, just a little more sallow. "Who knows," Luisa had
said, "if Maria will resemble her grandmother in soul as she does in
face." The Professor replied that it would indeed be a miracle to find
two such souls in the same family, and separated by so short an interval
of time. Then wishing to explain to how rare a species he conceived the
grandmother's soul to have belonged, he gave voice to the following
tangle: "There are souls," said he, "that openly deny a future life, and
live according to their opinions, solely for the present life. Such are
few in number. Then there are souls that pretend to believe in a future
life, and live entirely for the present. These are far more numerous.
There are souls that do not think about the future life, but live so
that they may not run too great a risk of losing it if, after all, it
should be found to exist. These are more numerous still. Then there are
souls that really do believe in the future life, and divide their
thoughts and actions into two categories, which are generally at war
with each other; one is for heaven, the other for earth. There are very
many such. And then there are souls that live entirely for the future
life, in which they believe. These are very few, and Signora Teresa was
one of them."

Franco, who hated psychological disquisitions, passed frowning, with his
empty watering-pot, on his way to the little garden, and thought: "Then
there are those souls that are bores!" Uncle Piero who, by the way, was
slightly deaf, was laughing with Maria. When her husband had passed,
Luisa said softly: "Then there are souls that live as if there were only
the future life, in which they do not believe. And of such there is
one." The Professor started, and looked at her in silence. She was
hunting in the tangle of the line for a double thread with a ring that
must be drawn through, and though she did not see his glance, still she
felt it