the great fig-tree that is
withered now, used at that time to spread its broad thick-leaved
branches over it just at the season when shade was most needed. In
those bare stone walls that had formerly served as a shelter to wild
creatures, Erminia lived. Her father had been dead for years, her
mother had no idea of management, so that the family had come down
wofully, and were glad enough to be allowed to nestle down in those
ruins. There were, indeed, many who would have been glad to support the
widow for her husband's sake. But you know how the proverb runs:

'Sacco rotto non tien miglio.
Pover uomo non va a consiglio.'[1]

It was all in vain. The girls who were thoroughly well-behaved, might
work their fingers to the bone, spinning and lace-making, and the
neighbours might do their part as well as they could, the old woman
drank everything up, and if she was not raging like a fury, she would
lie on the hearth and sleep, and leave her daughters to find food and
clothing for all. I do believe if their next neighbour, the fig-tree,
had not done its part so gallantly, that Erminia and her sister
Maddalena would both have died of hunger, for they were too proud to
beg. Raiment, indeed, the tree could not afford them, since we no
longer live in Paradise. Consequently everybody was astonished to see
the poor things come to church so neatly dressed, the more that there
was not a word to be said against them. True the younger of the two,
Maddalena was thoroughly safe from temptation, for she was as ugly as
sin, a short, unkempt, club-footed creature, with long arms and short
legs, having a gait much like that of a toad, and frightening the
children in the street if she came upon them unexpectedly.

"But she knew quite well how unsightly she was, and for the most part
kept at home, doing, however, no harm to anyone, which is not often the
case with such afflicted creatures, who are generally envious and
spiteful by way of revenging themselves for their misfortune. She, on
the contrary, seemed to look upon it as in the order of things that her
mother, after bringing into the world one child so boundlessly
beautiful as Erminia, should have had nothing but nature's refuse left
for a second. Instead of looking askance at her elder sister, and
wishing to poison her, she made so perfect an idol of her, that none of
the young men about were more in love with Erminia than the poor fright
Maddalena