bay.

"What are you carrying there in that little bundle?" enquired the
Padre, as they were floating on over a calm sea, now just beginning to
be lighted up with the earliest rays of the rising sun.

"Silk, thread, and a loaf, Padre. The silk is to be sold at Anacapri,
to a woman who makes ribbons, and the thread to another."

"Self spun?"

"Yes, sir."

"You once learned to weave ribbons yourself, if I remember right?"

"I did, sir, only mother has been much worse, and I cannot stay so long
from home; and a loom to ourselves, we are not rich enough to buy."

"Worse, is she? Ah! dear, dear! when I was with you last, at Easter,
she was up."

"The spring is always her worst time, ever since those last great
storms, and the earthquakes, she has been forced to keep her bed from
pain."

"Pray, my child. Never grow slack of prayers and petitions, that the
blessed Virgin may intercede for you; and be industrious and good, that
your prayers may find a hearing."

After a pause; "When you were coming toward the shore, I heard them
calling after you: 'Good morning, l'Arrabiata!' they said, what made
them call you so? it is not a nice name for a young Christian maiden,
who should be meek and mild."

The young girl's brown face glowed all over, while her eyes flashed
fire.

"They always mock me so, because I do not dance and sing, and stand
about to chatter, as other girls do. I might be left in peace, I think;
I do _them_ no harm."

"Nay, but you might be civil. Let others dance and sing, on whom this
life sits lighter, but a kind word now and then, is seemly even from
the most afflicted."

Her dark eyes fell, and she drew her eyebrows closer over them, as if
she would have hidden them.

They went on a while in silence. The sun now stood resplendent above
the mountain chain; only the tip of mount Vesuvius towered beyond the
group of clouds that had gathered about its base. And on the Sorrento
plains, the houses were gleaming white from the dark green of their
orange-gardens.

"Have you heard no more of that painter, Laurella?" asked the curato;
"that Neapolitan, who wished so much to marry you?" She shook her head.
"He came to make a picture of you. Why would you not let him?"

"What did he want it for? there are handsomer girls than I;--who knows
what he would have done with it?--he might have bewitched me with it,
or hurt my soul, or even killed me, mother says."

"Never believe such sinful things!" said t