the poor
little bosom with the beads on it above the green serge gown heaved so,
that there was no longer any help for it: a loud sob _would_ come, and
the big tears fell as if they were making up for lost time. Here was a
situation! It would have been brutal to leave her, and Tito's nature
was all gentleness. He wished at that moment that he had not been
expected in the Via de' Bardi. As he saw her lifting up her holiday
apron to catch the hurrying tears, he laid his hand, too, on the apron,
and rubbed one of the cheeks and kissed the baby-like roundness.

"My poor little Tessa! leave off crying. Let us see what can be done.
Where is your home--where do you live?"

There was no answer, but the sobs began to subside a little and the
drops to fall less quickly.

"Come! I'll take you a little way, if you'll tell me where you want to
go."

The apron fell, and Tessa's face began to look as contented as a
cherub's budding from a cloud. The diabolical conjuror, the anger and
the beating, seemed a long way off.

"I think I'll go home, if you'll take me," she said, in a half whisper,
looking up at Tito with wide blue eyes, and with something sweeter than
a smile--with a childlike calm.

"Come, then, little one," said Tito, in a caressing tone, putting her
arm within his again. "Which way is it?"

"Beyond Peretola--where the large pear-tree is."

"Peretola? Out at which gate, pazzarella? I am a stranger, you must
remember."

"Out at the Por del Prato," said Tessa, moving along with a very fast
hold on Tito's arm.

He did not know all the turnings well enough to venture on an attempt at
choosing the quietest streets; and besides, it occurred to him that
where the passengers were most numerous there was, perhaps, the most
chance of meeting with Monna Ghita and finding an end to his
knight-errant-ship. So he made straight for Porta Rossa, and on to
Ognissanti, showing his usual bright propitiatory face to the mixed
observers who threw their jests at him and his little heavy-shod maiden
with much liberality. Mingled with the more decent holiday-makers there
were frolicsome apprentices, rather envious of his good fortune;
bold-eyed women with the badge of the yellow veil; beggars who thrust
forward their caps for alms, in derision at Tito's evident haste;
dicers, sharpers, and loungers of the worst sort; boys whose tongues
were used to wag in concert at the most brutal street games: for the
streets of Floren