"You are talking nonsense, young man; and that must not be. Heyday!" she exclaimed, as she lifted up the lamp and lookt at him more narrowly, "why he is a Florentine! That doublet and cape is what I have not seen this many a day. Well now, this must surely bode me some good. So the ugly weather has made me a present of a dear guest; for you must know, my young gentleman, I too am from that blessed land. Ay Florence! Ah, if one might but once more tread on thy ground and see thy dear hills and gardens again! And your name, my dear young gentleman?" "Antonio Cavalcanti," said the youth, who felt more confidence in the old dame on finding that she was his countrywoman. "O what an accent!" cried she almost rapturously: "Cavalcanti! such a one I too knew some years since, one Guido." "He was my father," said Antonio. "And is he no longer alive?" "No," answered the young man; "my mother too was taken from me a long time ago." "I know it, I know it, my dear pretty boy. Ay, ay, it must now be full fifteen years since she died. Alas yes, it was then, in those troublous times, that she had to give up the ghost. And your dear worthy father, he is the only person I have to thank for the judges not having treated me just like a faggot some years after: they had somehow got it into their pates that I was a witch, and there was no avail in denying it. But Signor Guido fought my battle, what with reason and what with ranting, what with entreaties and what with threats: so they merely banisht me out of the dear land. And now this thunderstorm brings me the son of my benefactor into my poor little cottage. Come, give me your hand on the strength of it, youngster." Antonio gave it to the old woman shuddering; for now at length he was able to observe her more distinctly. She grinned at him friendly, and displayed two long black teeth standing out between her bristly lips; her eyes were small and sharp, her brow furrowed, her chin long; she stretcht out two gaunt shrivelled arms toward him; and being compelled, however loth, to embrace her, he felt the hump which made her ugliness still more disgusting. "True!" she said with a forced laugh, "I am not remarkably pretty; I was not so even in my younger days. There is something whimsical about beauty; one can never tell or describe downrightly in what it consists; it is always only the want of certain things which, when you have them at their full size, make up what folks call ugliness. Come now, tell me, such as I am, what do you think the most hideous thing about me?" "My dear old dame," said the youth in confusion.... "No," she cried, "plump out with the truth, and without any flattery. Everybody, you know, has some odd maggot or other; and as for me, I pride myself no little on being utterly without all those things which in the world they christen handsome. Now let me see your taste! speak out!"