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and then he went on saying to Bastianazzo and to his wife: " Didn't I tell you that boy ought to have been born rich, like Padron Cipolla's son, that he might have nothing to do but lie in the sun and scratch himself?" Meanwhile the year was a bad one, and the fish had to be given for tha souls of the dead, now that Christians had taken to eating meat on Friday like so many Turks. Besides, the men who remained at home were not enough to manage the boat, and sometimes they had to take La Locca's Menico, by the day, to help. The King did this way, you see — he took the boys just as they got big enough to earn their living; while they were little, and had to be fed, he left them at home. And there was Men a, too; the girl was seventeen, and the youths began to stop and stare at her as she went into church. So it was necessary to work with hands and feet too to drive that boat, at the house by the medlar-tree. Padron 'Ntoni, therefore, to drive the bark, had arranged with Uncle Crucifix Dumb-bell an affair concerning certain lupins to be bought on credit and sold again at Riposto, where Cousin Cinghia- lenta, the carrier, said there was a boat loading for Trieste. In fact, the lupins were beginning to rot; but they were all that were to be had at Trezza, Coarse flat beans. and that old rascal Dumb-bell knew that the Prov- videnza was eating her head off and doing nothing, so he pretended to be very stupid, indeed. " Eh! too much is it ? Let it alone, then! But I can't take a centime less ! I can't, on my conscience! I must answer for my soul to God! I can't"— and shook his head till it looked in real earnest like a bell without a clapper. This conversation took place atthe door of the church at Ognino, on the first Sunday in September, which was the feast of Our Lady....