Her story was an old, old story, to which we may perhaps recur: an orphan, born of the people, she was abandoned in her infancy, but God protected her. Destined to afford pleasure to everybody, she met a man to whom she afforded pure happiness. Having introduced these new characters, we now resume the thread of our narrative where we let it drop. "Aha! whence comest thou, gadabout?" said the master to Ascanio. "Whence do I come? I come from gadding about for you, master." "Since morning?" "Since morning." "Say rather that thou hast been in quest of adventure?" "What manner of adventure should I have been in quest of, master?" murmured Ascanio. "How can I know, pray?" "Well, well! and if it were so, where's the harm?" interposed Scozzone. "Indeed, he's a pretty boy enough to have adventures run after him, even though he run not after adventures." "Scozzone!" said the master with a frown. "Come, come! don't you be jealous of him, too, poor, dear boy!" And she raised Ascanio's chin with her hand. "Ah, well! it only needed that. But, Jesu! how pale you are! Does it happen that you haven't supped, monsieur vagabond?" "Faith, no," cried Ascanio; "I forgot it." "Oho! in that case I take sides with the master; he forgot that he had not supped, so he must be in love. Ruperta! Ruperta! bring supper for Messire Ascanio at once." The servant produced several dishes of appetizing relics of the evening meal, which our hero pounced upon with an appetite by no means unnatural after his prolonged exercise in the open air. Scozzone and the master watched him, smiling the while, one with sisterly affection, the other with a father's love. The young man at work in the corner had raised his head when Ascanio entered; but as soon as Scozzone replaced in front of him the lamp she had taken when she rail to open the door, he bent his head over his work once more. "I was saying, master, that it was for you I have been running about all day," resumed Ascanio, noticing the mischievous expression of the master and Scozzone, and desiring to lead the conversation to some other subject than his love affairs. "How hast thou run about all day for me? Let us hear." "Did you not say yesterday that the light was very bad here, and that you must have another studio?" "Even so." "Well, I have found one for you." "Dost thou hear, Pagolo?" said the master, turning to the young man in the corner. "What did you say, master?" he asked, raising his head a second time. "Come, lay aside thy work a moment, and listen to this. He has found a workshop: dost thou hear?" "Pardon, master, but I can hear very well from here what my friend Ascanio may say. I would like to complete this study; it seems to me that it is well, when one has piously fulfilled the duties of a Christian on the Sabbath day, to employ one's leisure in some profitable exercise: to work is to pray."