man of honour and character, was sure to be treated by him as he deserved.
“You know my name, then?” said Beppo, who had so far obeyed the corporal’s invitation as to come just sufficiently far across the door-sill as to make it possible for the latter to close the door behind him. He had done so because he did not know what else to do. And now he stood moodily measuring his smart little enemy from head to foot, thinking how easy it would be to pitch him out of one of those great windows into the street, and how much he should like to do it. It no more came into his head to be personally afraid of the corporal, than he would have been of a little terrier who barked at his heels. But he was much afraid of his uniform. The contadino mind stands in great and habitual awe of the military. For all that, Beppo would have been very glad to pick a quarrel with him; though he had a vague idea that to strike or resist such an embodiment of the forza pubblica would ipso facto subject him to be shot kneeling on his own coffin. But he felt as if he should rather like to be kneeling on his coffin than not, especially if Giulia could be compelled to witness his fate, and to know that he had incurred it by fighting to defend her from all snares, corporals, and other emissaries of the evil one. But Corporal Tenda did not seem to intend to give him any opportunity of entering on such a desperate course of conduct.
“Know your name, Signor Vanni!” said he; “Altro! I should think so, per Bacco! Who does not know the name of Vanni? Your lordship shares it with the divinest girl in all Romagna—in all Italy, I should say!”
“My business here was to see my cousin Giulia,” said Beppo, scowling more blackly than ever. “My father is in some sort responsible for—for her safety—and—and the decency of her conduct.”
“Hah! You come armed with parental authority, eh?” and the corporal winked in the most provokingly intelligent manner and the most perfect good humour as he spoke. “Pray walk in, and permit the Signorina Giulia to crave your blessing. It will be, I doubt not, supremely satisfactory to her! Allow me to do the honours of this poor mansion!” continued the corporal, waving his hand, as he spoke, with the mock airs of a host, and bowing low to Beppo as he motioned him to precede him.
“My cousin is but a poor servant in this house,” growled Beppo, while his mind was distracted from what he was saying by a desire rapidly becoming uncontrollable to spring on the accursed corporal, and strangle him then and there. “If she is disengaged, I might speak a few words to her before I leave the city; if not, it does not matter,—not the least in the world. Perhaps I had better not disturb her!”
“Come! Vi pare! Can you dream of it? A nice kind of guardian and protector you are for a young girl. Oh—é! Signora Giulia!” he cried out, raising his voice till it echoed again in the large empty hall; “here’s Signor Beppo yearning to give you his fatherly blessing; but he is in such a hurry just now to be off that, if you do not come out for it directly, he will carry it off straight back to the hills with him. Oh—é, Signora Giulia!”
“Hush—h—h!” cried Giulia, running out from the inner rooms, and holding up her hand with a warning gesture; “are you mad, Signor Caporale, to make such a noise as that? Don’t you know that la padrona is taking her siesta?”
La padrona was taking her siesta! And Giulia had been alone, then, with this animal of a profligate corporal! thought Beppo to himself. It was too bad—too barefaced! Thank God he had come into the city, and made himself acquainted with the truth! Thank God he had escaped wrecking his heart on a worthless girl! Escaped? Poor Beppo groaned inwardly as the word returned to his mind in the guise of a question.
They had not been absolutely tête-a-tête, however, he thought. For he supposed that Captain Brilli must be in the house somewhere. Lisa had vanished into the inner penetralia, and no doubt knew of the captain’s whereabouts.
The fact was that the attorney’s daughter and her lover were at that instant discussing all the chapter of their hopes and fears in a delicious tête-a-tête in la Dossi’s vacant sitting-room.
“How could I think about siestas or anything else, when your estimable guardian here was talking of leaving the house without seeing you, gentilissima Signora Giulia?” said the corporal, adding action with both hands, as he stood a few yards from Beppo on the paved floor of the vast hall, and affecting to speak in a voice of urgent remonstrance.
“My guardian!” said Giulia, tossing her head.
“I made no such claim,” said Beppo, sulkily; “I should be very sorry to assume such an office.”
“Come to see that the young lady conducted herself decently, on behalf of her family, if I understand your worship aright,” said the corporal, skipping into a new rhetorical attitude as he spoke.
“I said,” replied Beppo, stammering and turning very red, “that—my father—and mother—would—would be glad to hear that my cousin Giulia was—was—was going on well. I leave it to her to judge how far they will be satisfied with my report!”
Giulia’s eyes flashed at this, and the lightning was instantaneously followed by the thunderbolt.
“There is nobody at Bella Luce,” she said, “to whom my conduct is of the slightest importance. There is one way only in which I could grieve the heart of Signor Paolo Vanni, and in that way he may rest very sure I shall never afflict him!”
Corporal Tenda saw with undisguised admiration, and Beppo with an agony made up of a sense of self-blame conflicting with burning indignation and ardent love for his cousin, how much scorn could look beautiful in Giulia’s eyes as she spoke those last words—words which Beppo but too well understood.
“Diavolo! If family matters of delicacy have to be discussed—if the lady has confidences to make to her father-confessor, allow me to suggest the privacy of a confessional!” said the corporal, waving his hand towards the old sedan-chair in a