One day towards the last of the month a bitter wind was driving through the bleak, stony little street, sending clouds of gritty, frozen dust before it. The dark, fireless dwellings were colder than the outside air, and the people, swathed in heavy layers of clothing, to which all sorts of old cloaks and shawls and mufflers had been added, were standing about near the open doors of their shops and dwellings, various prominences under apron or coat betraying the hidden scaldino, the earthen dish which Italians tightly hug in winter with the hope that the few coals it contains will keep their benumbed fingers warm. All faces were reddened and frost-bitten. The hands of the children who were too young to hold a scaldino were purple-black. Prudence Guadagni, with her great basket strapped on her back, came along, receiving but two or three greetings as she passed. Few knew her; fewer still liked her, for was she not a foreigner and a pagan? Besides, what could you do with a woman who drank water, simple water, like a toad, and never touched wine--a woman who did not like oil, good, sweet, wholesome oil! Tonio's children were much commiserated for having fallen into such hands. Prudence was dressed as she had been in September, save that she now wore woollen stockings and coarse shoes, and tightly pinned round her spare person a large shawl. This shawl (she called it "my Highland shawl") had come with her from America; it was green in hue, plaided; she thought it still very handsome. Her step was not as light as it had been; rheumatism had crippled her sorely. As she left the town and turned up the hill towards home, some one who had been waiting there joined her. "Is that you, Bepper? Were you coming up to the house?" she said. "Yes," answered Beppa, showing her white teeth in a smile. "I'm bringing you some news, Denza." "Well, what is it? I hope you're not going to leave your place?" "I'm going to leave it, and that's my news: I'm going to be married." "My! it's sudden, isn't it?" said Prudence, stopping. "Giuseppe doesn't think it's sudden," said Beppa, laughing and tossing her head; "he thinks I've been ages making up my mind. Come on, Denza, do; it's so cold!" "I don't know Giuseppe, do I?" said Prudence, trudging on again; "I don't remember the name." "No; I've never brought him up to the house. But the boys know him--Paolo and Pasquale; Augusto, too. He's well off, Giuseppe is; he's got beautiful furniture. He's a first-rate mason, and gets good wages, so I sha'n't have to work any more--I mean go out to work as I do now." "Bepper, do you _like_ him?" said Prudence, stopping again. She took hold of the girl's wrist and held it tightly. "Of course I like him," said Beppa, freeing herself. "How cold your hands are, Denza--ugh!" "You ain't marrying him for his furniture? You love him for himself--and better than any one else in the whole world?" Prudence went on, solemnly.