"No," said Annunziata. "It is only a duty." And again she shook her head, slowly, darkly, with an effect of philosophic melancholy. "That is very strange and very hard," she pointed out. "If you do not do that which is your duty, it is bad, and you are punished. But if you do do it, that is not good,--it is only what you ought to do, and you are not rewarded." And she fetched her breath in the saddest of sad little sighs. Then, briskly covering her cheerfulness, "And you speak English, besides," she said. "Oh?" wondered the lady. "Are you a clairvoyante? How do you know that I speak English?" "My friend Prospero told me so," said Annunziata. "Your friend Prospero?" the lady repeated. "You quote your friend Prospero very often. Who is your friend Prospero?" "He is a signore," said Annunziata. "He has seen you, he has seen your form, in the garden and in the olive wood." "Oh," said the lady. "And I suppose he must have heard you speak English," Annunziata added. "He lives at the presbytery." "And where, by-the-by, do _you_ live?" asked the lady. "I live at the presbytery too," said Annunziata. "I am the niece of the parroco. I am the orphan of his only brother. My friend Prospero lives with us as a boarder. He is English." "Indeed?" said the lady. "Prospero is a very odd name for an Englishman." "Prospero is not his name," said Annunziata. "His name is Gian. That is English for Giovanni." "But why, then," the lady puzzled, "do you call him Prospero?" "Prospero is a name I have given him," explained Annunziata. "One day I told his fortune. I can tell fortunes--with olive-stones, with playing-cards, or from the lines of the hand. I will tell you yours, if you wish. Well, one day, I told Prospero's, and everything came out so prosperously for him, I have called him Prospero ever since. He will be rich, though he is poor; and he will marry a dark woman, who will also be rich; and they will have many, many children, and live in peace to the end of their lives. But there!" Annunziata cried out suddenly, with excitement, waving the hand that held her narcissus. "There is my friend Prospero now, coming in the gig." Down the avenue, sure enough, a gig was coming, a sufficiently shabby, ancient gig, drawn, however, at a very decent pace by a very decent-looking horse, and driven by John Blanchemain. "_Ciao_, Prospero!" called Annunziata, as he passed.