Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, no. 45, July, 1861 | Page 8

said the sharp voice of Elsie, coming up from behind, "don't
run on ahead of me again;--and you, Mistress Baggage, let my child
alone."
"Who's touching your child?" said Giulietta, scornfully. "Can't a body
say a civil word to her?"
"I know what you would be after," said Elsie,--"filling her head with
talk of all the wild, loose gallants; but she is for no such market, I
promise you! Come, Agnes."
So saying, old Elsie drew Agnes rapidly along with her, leaving
Giulietta rolling her great black eyes after them with an air of infinite
contempt.
"The old kite!" she said; "I declare he shall get speech of the little dove,
if only to spite her. Let her try her best, and see if we don't get round
her before she knows it. Pietro says his master is certainly wild after
her, and I have promised to help him."
Meanwhile, just as old Elsie and Agnes were turning into the
orange-orchard which led into the Gorge of Sorrento, they met the
cavalier of the evening before.
He stopped, and, removing his cap, saluted them with as much
deference as if they had been princesses. Old Elsie frowned, and Agnes
blushed deeply;--both hurried forward. Looking back, the old woman
saw that he was walking slowly behind them, evidently watching them
closely, yet not in a way sufficiently obtrusive to warrant an open
rebuff.

CHAPTER VIII
.
THE CAVALIER.

Nothing can be more striking, in common Italian life, than the contrast
between out-doors and in-doors. Without, all is fragrant and radiant;
within, mouldy, dark, and damp. Except in the well-kept palaces of the
great, houses in Italy are more like dens than habitations, and a sight of
them is a sufficient reason to the mind of any inquirer, why their
vivacious and handsome inhabitants spend their life principally in the
open air. Nothing could be more perfectly paradisiacal than this
evening at Sorrento. The sun had sunk, but left the air full of diffused
radiance, which trembled and vibrated over the thousand many-colored
waves of the sea. The moon was riding in a broad zone of purple, low
in the horizon, her silver forehead somewhat flushed in the general
rosiness that seemed to penetrate and suffuse every object. The
fishermen, who were drawing in their nets, gayly singing, seemed to be
floating on a violet-and-gold-colored flooring that broke into a
thousand gems at every dash of the oar or motion of the boat. The old
stone statue of Saint Antonio looked down in the rosy air, itself tinged
and brightened by the magical colors which floated round it. And the
girls and men of Sorrento gathered in gossiping knots on the old
Roman bridge that spanned the gorge, looked idly down into its dusky
shadows, talking the while, and playing the time-honored game of
flirtation which has gone on in all climes and languages since man and
woman began.
Conspicuous among them all was Giulietta, her blue-black hair recently
braided and polished to a glossy radiance, and all her costume arranged
to show her comely proportions to the best advantage,--her great pearl
ear-rings shaking as she tossed her head, and showing the flash of the
emerald in the middle of them. An Italian peasant-woman may trust
Providence for her gown, but ear-rings she attends to herself,--for what
is life without them? The great pearl ear-rings of the Sorrento women
are accumulated, pearl by pearl, as the price of years of labor. Giulietta,
however, had come into the world, so to speak, with a gold spoon in
her mouth,--since her grandmother, a thriving, stirring, energetic body,
had got together a pair of ear-rings of unmatched size, which had
descended as heirlooms to her, leaving her nothing to do but display
them, which she did with the freest good-will. At present she was
busily occupied in coquetting with a tall and jauntily-dressed fellow,
wearing a plumed hat and a red sash, who seemed to be mesmerized by

the power of her charms, his large dark eyes following every movement,
as she now talked with him gayly and freely, and now pretended
errands to this and that and the other person on the bridge, stationing
herself here and there, that she might have the pleasure of seeing
herself followed.
"Giulietta," at last said the young man, earnestly, when he found her
accidentally standing alone by the parapet, "I must be going
to-morrow."
"Well, what is that to me?" said Giulietta, looking wickedly from under
her eyelashes.
"Cruel girl! you know"----
"Nonsense, Pietro! I don't know anything about you"; but as Giulietta
said this, her great, soft, dark eyes looked out furtively, and said just
the contrary.
"You will go with me?"
"Did I ever hear anything like it? One can't be civil to a fellow but