as a nun's. Ferrara is the place of all the
world for you. I look forward to your speedy establishment in a city
where a girl may be like a flagstaff and yet not thought amiss."

Bellaroba looked humbly at herself in the glass; though she could see
that she was pretty, it was not to be denied that she was thin. Ah, no;
she did not take after her mother. Here she sighed to remember that her
bosom friend, Olimpia Castaneve, took after hers only too well, and was
to accompany her fortune-hunting in Ferrara for precisely opposite
reasons. Was this fair? she wondered. She, Bellaroba, was to go because
she was of a piece with the Ferrarese; Olimpia, because she could
furnish a provoking contrast. She was an affectionate, docile creature,
this shrinking Bellaroba, absurdly young, absurdly your servant; but
tears smarted in her eyes as she stood adorned for sacrifice--in her
tight crimson dress, lace at her neck and wrists, a jewel on her
forehead, a chain in her hair, and a cold block of lead dragging at her
heart. She had never denied any one anything, and certainly not her
mother. Her tears glistened as she blinked, her lip was shaky; she was
kissed a good-bye none the less, and went down the steps to join Olimpia
huddled in the gondola.

"Good-bye, my child," cried Madam Fragiletta from the doorway. "Be wise;
remember what I have told you. Never see a priest the wrong side of the
grille, and obey Monna Nanna in everything. I shall have a mass for you
at San Zan to-morrow, and another on your birthday, which I shall never
forget."

The morning was misty and sharp, Madam Fragiletta was very much
undressed, and loved her bed. She waved her hand gallantly to Bellaroba,
who still stood up wistful in the gondola; she did not wait for it to
shoot the bridge or round the square corner of the _rio_, but turned
shrugging to the house. There was no reasonable probability that these
two would ever meet again. Short outlooks govern La Fragiletta's trade,
and Providence, it seems, has little to do with it.

Olimpia Castaneve, the muffled brooder in the poop, was cold, cross, and
still. Bellaroba snivelled, but she was scornful under her cloak, and no
word passed between the pair until they were in the great blunt-nosed
barge, heading against a crisping tide for Chioggia. Then, as the sun
shot through the mist and revealed the lagoon, one broad sheet of silver
and blue, the shawls were opened, limbs went luxuriously at the stretch;
y