“I am sure, Signor Dottore, I have nothing worth your listening to,” answered Pasqualina, blushing.

“Tell us about the ghost your uncle saw,” suggested another of the girls.

“A ghost!” cried the Doctor.  “Any one here seen a ghost?  I wish I could have such a chance!  What was it like?”

“I did not see it myself; I do but believe what my uncle told me,” said Pasqualina, with a gravity that had a shade of resentment.

“If one is only to speak of what one has seen,” urged the prompter of the uncle’s ghost-story, “tell the Padrone of the witch that bewitched your sister.”

“Ah! and so we have witches too?” groaned the Doctor.

“As to that,” resumed Pasqualina, with a dignified look, “I can’t help believing my own eyes, and those of all the people of our village.”

“Well,” exclaimed Doctor Morani, “let us hear all about the witch.”

“You know, all of you,” said Pasqualina, “what bad fits my sister had, and how she was cured by the miraculous Madonna del Laghetto.  So my sister had no more fits, till Madalena, a spiteful old woman, and whom everybody in the village knows to be a witch, mumbled some of her spells and——­”

“Hallo!” cried the Doctor, “do you mean that witches have more power than the Madonna?”

“Oh!  Signor Dottore, you put things so strangely! just listen to the truth.  So this old woman came and mumbled some of her spells, and then my poor sister fell down again, and has since had fits as bad as ever.  But my father and brother were not going to take it so easily, and they beat the bad old witch till she couldn’t move, and had to be carried to the hospital.  I hope she may die, with all my heart I do!”

“You had better hope she will get well,” observed the Doctor, coolly; “for if she should happen to die, my good Pasqualina, it would be very possible that your father and brother might be sent to the galleys.”

Here Pasqualina set up a howl.

“Do not afflict yourself just now,” resumed Doctor Morani; “for, with all their good-will, they have not quite killed the woman.  I saw her myself at the hospital; she is getting better, and when cured, I shall take care that she does not return among such a set of savages as flourish in your village, Signorina Pasqualina.  Excuse my boldness,”—­and the Doctor took off his skull-cap, in playful obeisance to the young girl,—­“only advise your family another time to be less ready with their hands and their belief in every species of absurdity.  Did not Father Tommaso tell you but yesterday, that it was not right to believe in ghosts or witches, save and except the peculiar one or two it is his business to know about, and who lived some thousand years ago?  There have been none since, believe me.”

“Strange things do happen, however,” observed Signora Martina, thoughtfully,—­“things that neither priest nor lawyer can explain.  What was that thing which appeared, twenty years ago, on the tower of San Ciprano?” The Signora’s voice sent a shudder through all the women present.