saw the sick and the dead carried by, and unclosed
and closed the church doors, and thought that the
days grew very long; poor merry Sandro died,
quite suddenly, of a ball in his throat; and
Palma had to sell her hair to a barber in the
town to pay the grave, and to keep the boys and
the roof over their heads as best she could, two
of them earning something small, and three of
them nothing at all; old Teresina fell down
her wooden stairs and broke her leg, and could
trot about no more as her chief pleasure had
always been to do, but had to lie and look over
the tops of her roses in the little square window,
and only knew when the sun went down by the
glow in the bit of sky that was all she could ever
now see;—the weeks and the months w^ere very
slow to all these, and the luxuriant summer only
brought them heat and pain. They could not
follow their lark, even in fancy; he was gone so
high and so far; and though the summer had
come for them, it was all dark and dust. But
they were glad to think he was away against the
sun—glad all of them.
One morning Bruno went down early to the
