The girl's brown face glowed, and her eyes sparkled. "They laugh at me, because I will not dance and sing and gossip, like the others. They might let me go my own way. I do them no harm." "But you might be friendly with every one. Others, who lead easier lives may dance and sing; but kindly words may be given even by a sorrowful heart." She looked steadily down, and drew the black eyebrows still closer together, as if she wished to shroud the dark eyes entirely under them. For a while they, voyaged on in silence. The sun now stood glorious over the mountains. The peak of Vesuvius ranged high over the bank of mist which still wrapped its flanks, and the houses on the plains of Lorento gleamed whitely from amongst the green orange gardens. "Have you never heard any thing more of that painter, Lauretta," asked the padre, "that Neapolitan, who wanted to marry you?" She shook her head. "He wanted to paint your picture--why did you drive him away?" "Why did he want it? There are plenty prettier than I. And then, who knows what he might have done with it? He might have bewitched me with it, and endangered my soul, or even have killed me, my mother says." "Don't believe such wicked things," said the padre, gravely, "Are you not always in the hand of God, without whose permission not a hair can fall from your head? And do you think that a man with a poor picture like that can be stronger than the Lord God? You might have seen that he wished you well. Would he have wanted you to marry him if he had not?" She was silent. "Then why did you send him away? They said that he was an honest man and well to do, and could have kept you and your mother in comfort. Much more so than you can do now with your poor spinning and silk-weaving." "We are poor people." she said, impetuously. "And my mother has been ill a long time. We should only have been a burden to him; and I am not fit to be a signora. When his friends came to see him, he would have been ashamed of me." "What nonsense! I tell you that he was a good man, and, moreover, he was willing to settle in Lorento. Another like him will not come again in a hurry; he seemed sent straight from heaven to assist you." "I will never have a husband, never!" she said almost fiercely, and as if to herself. "Have you taken a vow, or do you intend to enter a cloister?" She shook her head. "The people are right in accusing you of obstinacy, even if the name be not a pretty one. Do you forget that you are not alone in the world, and that this resolution of yours makes your sick mother's life and illness still more bitter? What possible grounds can you have for casting aside each honest hand which stretches itself out to assist you and her? Answer me, Lauretta?" "I have, indeed, good grounds," she said, low and hesitatingly, "but I cannot tell them." "Not tell them? not even to me? not even to your old father confessor, whom you used to trust, and who you know means so well towards you? Will you?"