“Yes,” she said, carrying on her thought aloud, “you are a stranger; you don’t live anywhere or know anybody, do you?”
“No,” said Baldassarre, also thinking aloud, rather than consciously answering, “I only know one man.”
“His name is not Nofri, is it?” said Tessa, anxiously.
“No,” said Baldassarre, noticing her look of fear. “Is that your husband’s name?”
That mistaken supposition was very amusing to Tessa. She laughed and clapped her hands as she said—
“No, indeed! But I must not tell you anything about my husband. You would never think what he is—not at all like Nofri!”
She laughed again at the delightful incongruity between the name of Nofri—which was not separable from the idea of the cross-grained stepfather—and the idea of her husband.
“But I don’t see him very often,” she went on, more gravely. “And sometimes I pray to the Holy Madonna to send him oftener, and once she did. But I must go back to my bimbo now. I’ll bring it to show you tomorrow. You would like to see it. Sometimes it cries and makes a face, but only when it’s hungry, Monna Lisa says. You wouldn’t think it, but Monna Lisa had babies once, and they are all dead old men. My husband says she will never die now, because she’s so well dried. I’m glad of that, for I’m fond of her. You would like to stay here tomorrow, shouldn’t you?”
“I should like to have this place to come and rest in, that’s all,” said Baldassarre. “I would pay for it, and harm nobody.”
“No, indeed; I think you are not a bad old man. But you look sorry about something. Tell me, is there anything you shall cry about when I leave you by yourself? I used to cry once.”
“No, child; I think I shall cry no more.”
“That’s right; and I’ll bring you some breakfast, and show you the bimbo. Good night.”
Tessa took up her bowl and lantern, and closed the door behind her. The pretty loving apparition had been no more to Baldassarre than a faint rainbow on the blackness to the man who is wrestling in deep waters. He hardly thought of her again till his dreamy waking passed into the more vivid images of disturbed sleep.
But Tessa thought much of him. She had no sooner entered the house than she told Monna Lisa what she had done, and insisted that the stranger should be allowed to come and rest in the outhouse when he liked. The old woman, who had had her notions of making him a useful tenant, made a great show of reluctance, shook her head, and urged that Messer Naldo would be angry if she let anyone come about the house. Tessa did not believe that. Naldo had said nothing against strangers who lived nowhere; and this old man knew nobody except one person, who was not Nofri.
“Well,” conceded Monna Lisa, at last, “if I let him stay for a while and carry things up the hill for me, thou must keep thy counsel and tell nobody.”
“No,” said Tessa, “I’ll only tell the bimbo.”
“And then,” Monna Lisa went on, in her thick undertone, “God may love us well enough not to let Messer Naldo find out anything about it. For he never comes here but at dark; and as he was here two days ago, it’s likely he’ll never come at all till the old man’s gone away again.”
“Oh me! Monna,” said Tessa, clasping her hands, “I wish Naldo had not to go such a long, long way sometimes before he comes back again.”
“Ah, child! the world’s big, they say. There are places behind the mountains, and if people go night and day, night and day, they get to Rome, and see the Holy Father.”
Tessa looked submissive in the presence of this mystery, and began to rock her baby, and sing syllables of vague loving meaning, in tones that imitated a triple chime.
The next morning she was unusually industrious in the prospect of more dialogue, and of the pleasure she should give the poor old stranger by showing him her baby. But before she could get ready to take Baldassarre his breakfast, she found that Monna Lisa had been employing him as a drawer of water. She deferred her paternosters, and hurried down to insist that Baldassarre should sit on his straw, so that she might come and sit by him again while he ate his breakfast. That attitude made the new companionship all the more delightful to Tessa, for she had been used to sitting on straw in old days along with her goats and mules.
“I will not let Monna Lisa give you too much work to do,” she said, bringing him some steaming broth and soft bread. “I don’t like much work, and I daresay you don’t. I like sitting in the sunshine and feeding things. Monna Lisa says, work is good, but she does it all herself, so I don’t mind. She’s not a cross old woman; you needn’t be afraid of her being cross. And now, you eat that, and I’ll go and fetch my baby and show it you.”
Presently she came back with the small mummy-case in her arms. The mummy looked very lively, having unusually large dark eyes, though no more than the usual indication of a future nose.
“This is my baby,” said Tessa, seating herself close to Baldassarre. “You didn’t think it was so pretty, did you? It is like the little Gesù, and I should think the Santa Madonna would be kinder to me now, is it not true? But I have not much to ask for, because I have everything now—only that I should see my husband oftener. You may hold the bambino a little if you like, but I think you must not kiss him, because you might hurt him.”
She spoke this prohibition in a tone of soothing excuse, and Baldassarre could not refuse to hold the
