Pilade! Oh, carissimo!" She abandoned herself to joy.

"_You_ are the angel, the miracle! You are--"

"No, no, I am not an angel; but oh, I love you, dearly!"

"Ah, la Madonna!"

"I am Ippolita! I love you!"

"You love me? You are mine then--come."

"Andrea," said Castracane next morning, "I think the others will be back
before noon. You must wait here till they come. I am going to take
Silvestro over La Venda to see my mother, and confess to our curate. It
is good for the soul."

"Silvestro looks well this morning," said Andrea, with his mouth full of
bread. "What a colour of dawn! What shining eyes! He would make a proper
Madonna for a Mystery--eh?"

"He would," said Castracane laconically; "a most proper Madonna. With a
_Bambino_ on his lap--eh, Silvestro."

Silvestro blushed; Castracane pinched his cheek, which made matters
worse.

They took the road together through the deep hedges of the valley. Monte
Venda rose before them, dark with woods. Castracane's arm was round
Silvestro's waist: every twenty yards they stopped.

"To think of it!" cried Castracane, on one of these breathless halts.
"You to be like any one of us--breeched, clouted, swathed--and a lovely
lass within your shirt--Madonna!"

"Do you think me lovely?" asked Ippolita devoutly. "I have heard that
till I have been sick to death of it; but from you I shall never be
tired of knowing it."

"Blessed Angel!"

"Oh, Pilade, my love!"

They loitered on.

"You see that I am not what you thought me," said Ippolita, with an arch
look. "You thought I had killed a Jew."

"Never, per Bacco!" cried Castracane. "That I'll swear to."

"You thought I was a boy, even last night, dearest."

But that he denied. "Santissimo! Did I treat you like a boy, I ask
you?"

"You knocked me down once, Pilade."

"Every honest man knocks his wife down once," said Pilade gravely.

"And then you kissed me."

"I can kiss you again," said Pilade; and did.

I repeat, Padua is a freakish city. The Sub-Prefect writes madrigals in
vain. Castracane, the goatherd, sends Silvestro sprawling, and wins the
golden Ippolita for a willing bride. What are we to make of it? _Deus
nobis haec otia fecit._

THE DUCHESS OF NONA

"L'Anima semplicetta, che sa nulla,
Salvo che, mossa da lieto fattore,
Volentier torna a cio che la trastulla."
--_Purg._ xvi. 88.

I

BOCCA BACIATA

"Not unprosperous is your Era