As she carried the letter to the red box on the corner her stoical face gave no token of satisfaction felt by reason of the simple but clean solution of a vexed problem which Bertino’s letter had supplied. Ten minutes later she stood in the doorway of Signor Di Bello’s shop. “Ah, _angelo mio_, welcome again!” was his greeting. Then with an air of secrecy: “But sh----! sh----! Not a word here. That boy! His ears are very large and his tongue is long. Every word we said before he heard. Come, let us go for a promenade.” They crossed to Paradise Park and mounted the broad staircase to the pavilion where the band plays, and took seats in a corner apart from the gabbling women and their swarms of yellow children. Without ado she came to the point: “My answer is ready. I will be your wife.” “Joy!” he cried. “But it must be at once. Within the week. The next Feast of Sunday.” “The Feast of Sunday.” “Ah, what a wedding it shall be! The finest ever seen in Mulberry. Listen, _mia diletta_, and I will give you my idea. In an open carriage, with white and purple plumes in the horses’ heads, we shall go to the Church of San Patrizio. Shall it be San Patrizio or San Loretto? For me San Patrizio is most agreeable.” “For me too,” said Juno. “At San Loretto one finds too many Sicilian pigs.” “You are right. In the afternoon, then, you wait in the restaurant of Santa Lucia, all ready in your white gown and orange blossoms. Ah, how magnificent you will----” “Bah!” she interrupted. “White gown and orange blossoms! Where do you think I am to get them? Let me tell you something, signore: I am poor.” “By the chains of Colombo, then, I am not!” he exclaimed jubilantly. “You shall have them, and the finest in all Grand Street. Here, see what kind of a man your promised spouse is!” From an inside pocket of his waistcoat he drew a large calfskin wallet bound about many times with stout cord, and took from the plenteous store therein one ten-dollar note. This he handed to Juno with a proud “There my angel.” “Thank you,” she said faintly, turning over the bill. “And yellow boots you shall have,” he went on; “just like the ones Signorina Crotelli had last Sunday. I saw them when she and Pietro went up the church steps. Which do you like best, yellow or white boots?” “I think yellow boots for a bride are very sympathetic,” she answered, folding the bank note and tying it in a corner of her handkerchief. And without a moment’s delay she set off for Grand Street, where the flower of Mulberry does its shopping. Two hours afterward, her arms heaped with bundles, and every cent of the ten dollars gone, she appeared in the kitchen of her landlady and shocked her with tidings of the nuptials so near at hand. “Body of the Serpent!” remarked the Garlic Woman. “In the morning you are a woman without hope, and in the evening you come back the promised wife of a rich signore.”