Lighted by an irresolute gas-jet, the space between the back-drop and the rear wall of the theatre was a chaos of strange objects. Beside me, upon the bench, lay the book of the play—a collection of those legends of Charlemagne's court, descended from the _Chansons de gestes_, which have been so dear to Italian poets and are still so dear to the Italian people. Each afternoon the manager read over the adventure to be presented in the evening. When the curtain rose he took his stand in the wings and declaimed lines extemporized to fit the situations. The helpers, from their places upon the high bench, leaned over the back-drop, swung the marionettes upon the stage by means of long rods running down through the heads of the figures, and by means of other rods and of strings caused the mock men and women to make gestures and to fight. That was a task which told upon heads as well as hands; for the helpers were bound, not only to make the figures walk—no light labor, for each puppet weighed seventy pounds—but also to make them express the sentiment of every speech as it fell from Pietro's lips. Many times had I tried to handle a marionette and as often had failed; and I looked with respect upon the row of little creatures hung about the walls from a rack. They were dight in the panoply of knighthood. At my left shone the brass armor of the Christianos. The right was brilliant with the party-colored robes and turbans and the glowering faces of dusky infidels. The corners were piled high with heterogeneous properties; bright silks, bits of armor, shields, swords. From the right-hand heap protruded a ghastly leg, lopped from a Christian. The summit of the opposite heap was the grinning head of a dragon which had met death a few nights before in terrible battle with Orlando. The dragon's body was a comfortable support for Beatrice's back. Of her face, bent over her work, I could see only an obstinate little olive-colored chin, two faintly red cheeks, and two straight black brows. Her hair hung over ears and shoulders and fell in dusky tangles upon a green silk waist. Ordinarily, Italian girls begin early in life to use hairpins. "How old are you, Beatrice?" I asked. The girl looked up and opened wide a pair of great tawny eyes. "How old, Signore?" she repeated, in her low, husky voice. "Fifteen-a. Nex' moont' I s'all be sixteen-a." "So old!" I commented. "Almost a woman. You'll be having a sweetheart soon; and what will your father do when he wants an angel?" Again I saw of Beatrice only a veil of hair and a hand rapidly plying to and fro. "No, Signore," she murmured from behind her screen. "I am not enough old-a. I s'all nevair marry. Who would tak-a me?" "Anselmo?" I suggested. I caught a gleam of the tawny eyes through the hair. "I do not tink of 'im!" she expostulated. "The other helper, then. What's his name? Giuseppe?"