market in the city. It was August, and he had
samples of his wheat with him. He worked hard;
never looking over through the belt of pines to
the brook under the rushes; worked as hard as
he had done when he had worked with a great
hope and goal before him; partly because it was
the one habit of his life, partly because he so
had least time for thought; and also—although,
indeed, the boy needed nothing now, and made
his money for himself, and would have none sent
to him—because the time might come that he
would want it.
"Di doman non si e certezza."
One never knew—so Bruno said to himself, and laid by what he could in the old leathern pouch thrust behind a loose brick in the chimney corner, that had once held the purchase-money of the land that he had lost.
It was five in the morning; a morning cold with that fresh alpine clear coldness which precedes at daybreak the hottest weather for the noon, and refreshes the thirsty earth with its dense dews, that are as thick as rain. On the bridge he met a girl slowly toiling under a great