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Title: Little Novels of Italy
Madonna Of The Peach-Tree, Ippolita In The Hills, The
Duchess Of Nona, Messer Cino And The Live Coal, The Judgment
Of Borso

Author: Maurice Henry Hewlett

Release Date: March 29, 2007 [EBook #20929]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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LITTLE NOVELS OF ITALY

BY

MAURICE HEWLETT

AUTHOR OF "THE FOREST LOVERS," "PAN AND THE YOUNG
SHEPHERD," "EARTHWORK OUT OF TUSCANY," ETC.

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1899

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1899,
By MAURICE HEWLETT.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

TO

HIS FRIEND

AND

ITALY'S

MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH BONUS, R.E.

THE AUTHOR DEDICATES HIS BOOK

CONTENTS

PAGE
MADONNA OF THE PEACH-TREE 1

IPPOLITA IN THE HILLS 67

THE DUCHESS OF NONA 137

MESSER CINO AND THE LIVE COAL 225

THE JUDGMENT OF BORSO 254

LITTLE NOVELS OF ITALY

MADONNA OF THE PEACH-TREE

I

VANNA IS BID FOR

Not easily would you have found a girl more winning in a tender sort
than Giovanna Scarpa of Verona at one and twenty, fair-haired and
flushed, delicately shaped, tall and pliant, as she then was. She had to
suffer her hours of ill report, but passes for near a saint now, in
consequence of certain miracles and theophanies done on her account,
which it is my business to declare; before those she was considered (if
at all) as a girl who would certainly have been married three years ago
if dowries had not been of moment in the matter. In a city of maids as
pretty as they are modest--which no one will deny Verona to be--there
may have been some whose charms in either kind were equal to hers, while
their estate was better in accord; but the speculation is idle.
Giovanna,