drawer of water. She deferred her paternosters, and hurried down to insist that Baldassarre should sit on his straw, so that she might come and sit by him again while he ate his breakfast. That attitude made the new companionship all the more delightful to Tessa, for she had been used to sitting on straw in old days along with her goats and mules.
“I will not let Monna Lisa give you too much work to do,” she said, bringing him some steaming broth and soft bread. “I don’t like much work, and I daresay you don’t. I like sitting in the sunshine and feeding things. Monna Lisa says, work is good, but she does it all herself, so I don’t mind. She’s not a cross old woman; you needn’t be afraid of her being cross. And now, you eat that, and I’ll go and fetch my baby and show it you.”
Presently she came back with the small mummy-case in her arms. The mummy looked very lively, having unusually large dark eyes, though no more than the usual indication of a future nose.
“This is my baby,” said Tessa, seating herself close to Baldassarre. “You didn’t think it was so pretty, did you? It is like the little Gesù, and I should think the Santa Madonna would be kinder to me now, is it not true? But I have not much to ask for, because I have everything now—only that I should see my husband oftener. You may hold the bambino a little if you like, but I think you must not kiss him, because you might hurt him.”
She spoke this prohibition in a tone of soothing excuse, and Baldassarre could not refuse to hold the small package. “Poor thing! poor thing!” he said, in a deep voice which had something strangely threatening in its apparent pity. It did not seem to him as if this guileless loving little woman could reconcile him to the world at all, but rather that she was with him against the world, that she was a creature who would need to be avenged.