“Are you finished?”

“Oh! my father, have mercy!  Pardon me!  I will never do so again.  I will beg my cousin, the Caporal, to pardon Gianetto.”

He was still speaking.  Mateo raised his gun, and, taking aim, said: 

“May God pardon you!”

The boy made a desperate effort to rise and grasp his father’s knees, but there was not time.  Mateo fired and Fortunato fell dead.

Without casting a glance on the body, Mateo returned to the house for a spade with which to bury his son.  He had gone but a few steps when he met Giuseppa, who, alarmed by the shot, was hastening hither.

“What have you done?” cried she.

“Justice.”

“Where is he?”

“In the ravine.  I am going to bury him.  He died a Christian.  I shall have a mass said for him.  Have my son-in-law, Tiodoro Bianchi, sent for to come and live with us.”

THE MIRROR

BY CATULLE MENDES

There was once a kingdom where mirrors were unknown.  They had all been broken and reduced to fragments by order of the queen, and if the tiniest bit of looking-glass had been found in any house, she would not have hesitated to put all the inmates to death with the most frightful tortures.

Now for the secret of this extraordinary caprice.  The queen was dreadfully ugly, and she did not wish to be exposed to the risk of meeting her own image; and, knowing herself to be hideous, it was a consolation to know that other women at least could not see that they were pretty.

You may imagine that the young girls of the country were not at all satisfied.  What was the use of being beautiful if you could not admire yourself?

They might have used the brooks and lakes for mirrors; but the queen had foreseen that, and had hidden all of them under closely joined flagstones.  Water was drawn from wells so deep that it was impossible to see the liquid surface, and shallow basins must be used instead of buckets, because in the latter there might be reflections.

Such a dismal state of affairs, especially for the pretty coquettes, who were no more rare in this country than in others.

The queen had no compassion, being well content that her subjects should suffer as much annoyance from the lack of a mirror as she felt at the sight of one.

However, in a suburb of the city there lived a young girl called Jacinta, who was a little better off than the rest, thanks to her sweetheart, Valentin.  For if someone thinks you are beautiful, and loses no chance to tell you so, he is almost as good as a mirror.

“Tell me the truth,” she would say; “what is the color of my eyes?”

“They are like dewy forget-me-nots.”

“And my skin is not quite black?”

“You know that your forehead is whiter than freshly fallen snow, and your cheeks are like blush roses.”