Antonino did not contemplate this long in silence. He took two oranges out of the basket which he had brought over full in the morning, and said, "Here is something to eat with your bread, Lauretta--don't think that I kept them for you, they fell out of the basket into the boat, and I found them when I brought the empty ones back." "You had better eat them yourself, my bread is enough for me." "They are so refreshing in the heat, and you have had such a long walk." "They gave me a glass of water above there, that refreshed me enough." "As you please," he said, and let them fall back into the basket again. Fresh silence. The sea was like a mirror, and hardly rustled round the boat's keel--even the white seamews, that had their nests amongst the rocks, pursued their prey without a cry. "You could take the two oranges home to your mother," Antonino again began. "We have some at home, and when they are gone, I can go and buy more." "But take them to her with a kind word from me. "She does not know you." "You can tell her who I am." "_I_ do not know you." It was not the first time that she had thus denied him. A year before, when the painter had just arrived at Lorento, it chanced one summer evening that Antonino and some other young fellows of the town were playing boicia on an open piece of ground near the High-street--then it was that the Neapolitan first saw Lauretta, who, bearing a water-jar on her head, swept by without seeming to notice his presence. Struck with her beauty, he stood gazing at her, forgetting that he was just in the centre of the play-ground, and might have cleared it in two steps. A ball, thrown by no friendly hand, struck him on the ancle, and reminded him that that was not the place to lose himself in reveries. He looked round as if he expected an apology; the young fisherman who had thrown the ball, stood silent and defiant amongst his companions, and the stranger thought it his best policy to avoid a discussion and go. But people had talked about the affair at the time, and spoke anew about it when the painter began openly to pay his court to Lauretta. "I do not know him," she had said angrily, when the painter asked her whether she refused him for the sake of this uncivil youth. And yet the story had reached her ears too; and since that time, whenever she met Antonino, she recognized him well enough.