ll the maids in
the house and all the farmers' daughters round Coombe in love with him,
and I told you how he had scandalized one of the best tenants, Mr. John
Best. The Bedford rustics all vow vengeance against him; but he twangs
his mandoline, and sings away at the top of his voice, and doesn't care
a straw that the butler loathes him, the house-steward abhors him, the
grooms would horsewhip him if they dared, and the young farmers audibly
threaten to duck him in the pond. Toniello is very fond of his master,
but he does not extend his allegiance to me. Do you remember Mrs.
Stevens, Aunt Caroline's model housekeeper? You should see her face when
she chances to hear Piero laughing and talking with Toniello. I think
she believes that the end of the world has come. Piero calls Toniello
"_figliolo mio_" and "_caro mio_," just as if they were cousins or
brothers. It appears this is the Italian way. They are very proud in
their own fashion, but it isn't our fashion. However, I am glad the man
is there when I hear the click of the billiard-balls, and the splash of
the rain-drops on the window-panes. We have been here just three weeks.
"_Dio!_ it seems three years," Piero said, when I reminded him of it,
this morning. For me, I don't know whether it is like a single day's
dream or a whole eternity. You know what I mean. But I wish--I wish--it
seemed either the day's dream or the eternity of Paradise to him! I dare
say it is all my fault in coming to these quiet, bay-windowed,
Queen-Anne rooms, and the old-fashioned servants, and the dreary lookout
over the soaking hay-fields. But the sun does come out sometimes, and
then the wet roses smell so sweet, and the wet lime-blossoms glisten in
the light, and the larks sing overhead, and the woods are so green and
so fresh. Still, I don't think he likes it even then: it is all too
moist, too windy, too dim, for him. When I put a rose in his button-hole
this morning, it shook the drops over him, and he said, "_Mais quel
pays!--meme une fleur c'est une douche d'eau froide!_" Last month, if I
had put a dandelion in his coat, he would have sworn it had the odor of
the magnolia and the beauty of the orchid. It is just twenty-two days
ago since we came here, and the first four or five days he never cared
whether it rained or not: he only cared to lie at my feet, really,
literally. We were all in all to each other, just like Cupid and Psyche.
And now--he will play billiards with Toniello to p