Then again, though she certainly was beautiful, it was in a very different style from her neighbors; indeed, she was of quite a different type from what one usually sees anywhere in the whole district, as far South as Naples. The women in these parts are small, agile, and graceful, with pretty little dark brown faces, small, sharp noses, pouting lips, and wild curly hair, almost entirely covering their low foreheads. They are light-hearted creatures, laughing and chattering the whole day long; and in character they are an odd mixture of carelessness, shrewdness, passion, cunning, and narrow-mindedness. Lucia, on the other hand, was well grown and stately-looking; her face was oval, and she had smooth black hair and wonderful deep brown, tranquil eyes, which seemed to look thoughtfully at everything; and her mouth, though well-formed and full-lipped, was firmly closed; she moved about in a dignified, deliberate way, and she was reckoned the most unsociable girl in the village, for she never spoke a word more than was actually necessary. The very fact of her being so unlike other village girls, however, caused Lucia to be quite the rage at one time. All the young men for miles round were crazy about her, and she had as many offers as there were Sundays in the year; for she had other attractions besides her beauty. Every one knew that besides the very tolerable property in Palenella, which was all her own and quite unencumbered, Lucia also possessed 10,000 lire, or something over 400_l._, in the national bank of Rome, so that for these parts she was a considerable heiress. Lucia allowed her suitors to say their say without interruption, and then raising those calm, wonderful eyes, and looking steadily at them for the space of a second, she announced that she had no intention of marrying. Things had gone on in this way from Lucia’s fifteenth birthday for five years; every Sunday and holiday some one made her an offer, and every Sunday and holiday some one was refused, until she gave up answering at all, and merely waved her lovers off with a gesture of her hand, neither more nor less than contemptuous. The young men had taken offence at her behavior at last, and now revenged themselves by pronouncing her cracked, and leaving her to herself. All but one of them at least did so, and he was the son of a wealthy farmer, Pietro Antonio by name, who lived higher up among the mountains. Pietro was not so easily to be got rid of as the rest, and, do what she would, he followed her everywhere, lying in wait for her at the fêtes and processions, watching for her at church and market, and persecuting her to such an extent, now with pretty speeches and entreaties, and now with angry threats, that at last Lucia gave up going to the fêtes, and did not even venture to church except in the late evening, when she could do so unobserved.