“Come, then,” said Bratti, fond of laying up a store of merits by imagining possible extortions and then heroically renouncing them, “since you’re an old acquaintance, you shall have it for two quattrini . It’s making you a present of the cross, to say nothing of the blessing.”
Tessa was reaching out her two quattrini with trembling hesitation, when Bratti said abruptly, “Stop a bit! Where do you live?”
“Oh, a long way off,” she answered, almost automatically, being preoccupied with her quattrini ; “beyond San Ambrogio, in the Via Piccola, at the top of the house where the wood is stacked below.”
“Very good,” said Bratti, in a patronising tone; “then I’ll let you have the cross on trust, and call for the money. So you live inside the gates? Well, well, I shall be passing.”
“No, no!” said Tessa, frightened lest Naldo should be angry at this revival of an old acquaintance. “I can spare the money. Take it now.”
“No,” said Bratti, resolutely; “I’m not a hard-hearted pedlar. I’ll call and see if you’ve got any rags, and you shall make a bargain. See, here’s the cross: and there’s Pippo’s shop not far behind you: you can go and fill your basket, and I must go and get mine empty. Addio, piccina. ”
Bratti went on his way, and Tessa, stimulated to change her money into confetti before further accident, went into Pippo’s shop, a little fluttered by the thought that she had let Bratti know more about her than her husband would approve. There were certainly more dangers in coming to see the Carnival than in staying at home; and she would have felt this more strongly if she had known that the wicked old man, who had wanted to kill her husband on the hill, was still keeping her in sight. But she had not noticed the man with the burden on his back.
The consciousness of having a small basketful of things to make the children glad dispersed her anxiety, and as she entered the Via de’ Libraj