married and who and what his bride was, and they gazed at
her with bright, approving eyes, though she felt terribly bedraggled
and travel-worn.

"You come from England? Yes! Nice contry!" said a man in a corner,
leaning forward to make this display of his linguistic capacity.

"Not so nice as this," said Alvina.

"Eh?"

Alvina repeated herself.

"Not so nice? Oh? No! Fog, eh!" The fat man whisked his fingers in
the air, to indicate fog in the atmosphere. "But nice contry!
Very--_convenient_."

He sat up in triumph, having achieved this word. And the
conversation once more became a spatter of Italian. The women were
very interested. They looked at Alvina, at every atom of her. And
she divined that they were wondering if she was already with child.
Sure enough, they were asking Ciccio in Italian if she was "making
him a baby." But he shook his head and did not know, just a bit
constrained. So they ate slices of sausages and bread and fried
rice-balls, with wonderfully greasy fingers, and they drank red
wine in big throatfuls out of bottles, and they offered their fare
to Ciccio and Alvina, and were charmed when she said to Ciccio she
_would_ have some bread and sausage. He picked the strips off the
sausage for her with his fingers, and made her a sandwich with a
roll. The women watched her bite it, and bright-eyed and pleased
they said, nodding their heads--

"Buono? Buono?"

And she, who knew this word, understood, and replied:

"Yes, good! Buono!" nodding her head likewise. Which caused immense
satisfaction. The women showed the whole paper of sausage slices,
and nodded and beamed and said:

"Se vuole ancora--!"

And Alvina bit her wide sandwich, and smiled, and said:

"Yes, awfully nice!"

And the women looked at each other and said something, and Ciccio
interposed, shaking his head. But one woman ostentatiously wiped a
bottle mouth with a clean handkerchief, and offered the bottle to
Alvina, saying:

"Vino buono. Vecchio! Vecchio!" nodding violently and indicating
that she should drink. She looked at Ciccio, and he looked back at
her, doubtingly.

"Shall I drink some?" she said.

"If you like," he replied, making an Italian gesture of
indifference.

So she drank some of the wine, and it dribbled on to her chin. She
was not good at managing a bottle. But she liked the feeling of
warmth it gave her. She was very tired.

"Si piace? Piace?"

"Do you like it," interpreted Ciccio.

"Yes, very