The innkeeper looked towards the door and the small window suspiciously before he answered in a low voice.

“If I had not been sure that he would die, I would not have sold the watch and chain,” he said.  “In the house of my father we have always been honest people.”

“He will die,” answered Nanna, confidently and with emphasis.  “The girl says he is hungry to-day.  He shall eat beans.  They are white beans, too, and the white are much heavier than the brown.”

She lifted the tin cover off the earthen pot and stirred the contents.

“White beans!” grumbled Paoluccio.  “And the weather is hot.  Do you wish to kill me?”

“No,” answered Nanna quietly.  “Not you.”

“Do you know what I say?” Paoluccio planted a huge finger on the oaken board.  “That sick butterfly upstairs is tougher than I am.  Forty-seven days of fever, and nothing but bread and water!  Think of that, my Nanna!  Think of it!  You or I would be consumed, one would not even see our shadows on the floor!  But he lives.”

“If he eats the white beans he has finished living,” remarked Nanna.

A short silence followed, during which Paoluccio seemed to be meditating, and Nanna began to ladle the beans out into four deep earthenware bowls, roughly glazed and decorated with green and brown stripes.

“You are a jewel; you are the joy of my heart,” he observed thoughtfully, as Nanna placed his portion before him, covered it with oil, and scattered some chopped basil on the surface.

“Eat, my love,” she said, and she cut a huge piece from a coarse loaf and placed it beside him on a folded napkin that looked remarkably clean in such surroundings, and emitted a pleasant odour of dried lavender blossoms.

“Where is the girl?” asked Paoluccio, stirring the mess and blowing upon it.

As he spoke, the door was darkened, and the girl stood there with a large copper “conca,” the water-jar of the Roman province, balanced on her head—­one of the most magnificent human beings on whom the sun of the Campagna ever shone.  She was tall, and she bent her knees without moving her neck, in order to enter the door without first setting down the heavy vessel.

[Illustration:  " ...  The door was darkened, and the girl stood there with A large copper ‘conca’ ...”]

Her thick dark hair grew low on her forehead, almost black, save for the reddish chestnut lights where a few tiny ringlets curled themselves about her small and classic ears.  Straight black eyebrows outlined the snow-white forehead, and long brown lashes shaded the fearless eyes, that looked black too.  She smiled a little, quite unconsciously, as she lowered herself with the weight and gracefully rose to her height again after she had entered.  One shapely brown hand steadied the conca above, the other gathered her coarse skirt; then she stood still, lifted the load from her head with both hands and without any apparent effort, and set it down in its place on a stone slab near the hearth.  Most women need a little help to do that.