ty figure she had. She was very
industrious, but no less full of talk: there seemed so much to say! The
pauses were frequent in which she straightened herself from the hips and
turned to thrust chin and voice into the debate. You saw then the sharp
angle, the fine line of light along that raised chin, the charming turn
of the neck, her free young shoulders and shapely head; also you marked
her lively tones of _ci_ and _si_, and how her shaking finger drove them
home. The wind would catch her yellow hair sometimes and wind it across
her bosom like a scarf; or it streamed sideways like a long pennon; or
being caught by a gust from below, sprayed out like a cloud of litten
gold. Vanna always joined in the laugh at her mishap, tossed her tresses
back, pinned them up (both hands at the business); and then, with square
shoulders and elbows stiff as rods, set to working the dirt out of Don
Urbano's surplice. Baldassare brooded, chewing straws. What a clear
colour that girl had, to be sure! What a lissom rascal it was! A fine
long girl like that should be married; by all accounts she would make a
man a good wife. If he were a dozen years the better of four and fifty
he might--Then came a shrug, and a "Ma!" to conclude in true Veronese
Baldassare's ruminations. Shrug and explosion signalled two stark facts:
Baldassare was fifty-four, and Vanna had no portion.

Yet he remained watching on the bridge, his chin buried in his knotty
hands, his little eyes blinking under stress of the inner fire he had.
So it befell that La Testolina saw him, and said something shrill and
saucy to her neighbour. The wind tossed him the tone but not the sense.
He saw the joke run crackling down the line, all heads look brightly
up. The joke caught fire; he saw the sun-gleam on a dozen perfect sets
of teeth. Vanna's head was up with the rest, sooner up and the sooner
down. Even from that height the little twinkling beacons from the bridge
shot her through. He saw her colour deepen, head droop; she was busy
long before the others had wrung their joke dry. "Soul of a cat!"
grunted Baldassare between his teeth, "what a rosy baggage it is!" He
waited a little longer, then deliberately passed the bridge, rounded the
pillar by the steps, and went down to the women like a man who has made
up his mind. Lizabetta of the roving eye caught the first hint of his
shadow. Her elbow to Nonna's ribs, Nonna's "Pst!" in Nina's ear, spread
the news. Vanna's cheeks flew th