"No, no," answered the girl, with a shrewd glance; "it is not you she came to mate with; it is your friend; and you stand by, like the dog by his master's chair, watching the good things provided for him, and only taking what scraps he gives you--Ha! ha! gay signor, have I touched you?" "By my faith you have, and hit hard," replied Sir John Hume; "but I will have a kiss for that, Bianchina, before we part." "It must be in the dark, then," cried the girl, laughing, "for fear I should see your face and not like it." "But about this Venetian lady's goods and chattels, my two pretty maids," said the young knight, recurring to the subject. "We cannot break her coffre open and steal her apparel." "Trouble not your brain with that, gay signor," answered the girl Maria. "We will not make you take part in robbery." "Unless you steal my heart, and I lose it willingly," replied the knight. "No fear of that; it is not worth stealing," replied the girl. "If it has been bestowed on every country girl you meet, it must be well nigh worn out by this time. As to the apparel, it belongs to us, now. That sweet lady's case was much of the same sort as this one's. She fled from a hard father at Venice, and came hither to meet her lover, and fly with him to Bergamo; but, by some mischance, it was nine whole days before he found her, and all that time we hid her close, though the pursuers tracked her almost to our door. We used to sit with her, too, and comfort her, and talk of love, and how fortune often favoured it at last, after having crossed it long. At the end of the nine days, the young marquis came and found her; but as they were obliged to fly for their lives on horseback, the coffre was left behind; and when she got home and was married, she wrote to bid us keep it for her love, and divide the contents between us. They are not garments fit for such as we are; long black robes, which would cover our feet and ankles, and trail upon the ground, mantles and hoods, and veils of Venice lace. We cut up one velvet cloak, to make us bodices for holidays, but that is all we have taken yet; and we can well spare the lady garments enough for her journey, and more becoming her than those which now she wears."