could make it.  Here, on neat stands, all his favorite flowers were arranged.  Here four orange-trees were in full blossom; here a kind of summer-house or Belvidere, built by Jackeymo and himself, made his chosen morning-room from May till October; and from this Belvidere there was as beautiful an expanse of prospect as if our English Nature had hospitably spread on her green board all that she had to offer as a banquet to the exile.

A man without his coat, which was thrown over the balustrade, was employed in watering the flowers:  a man with movements so mechanical—­with a face so rigidly grave in its tawny hues—­that he seemed like an automaton made out of mahogany.

“Giacomo,” said Dr. Riccabocca, softly.

The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head.

“Put by the watering-pot, and come here,” continued Riccabocca in Italian; and moving toward the balustrade, he leaned over it.  Mr. Mitford, the historian, calls Jean Jacques John James.  Following that illustrious example, Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo.  Jackeymo came to the balustrade also, and stood a little behind his master.

“Friend,” said Riccabocca, “enterprises have not always succeeded with us.  Don’t you think, after all, it is tempting our evil star to rent those fields from the landlord?” Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some strange movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in a ring on his finger.

“If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad cheap?” said Jackeymo, doubtfully.

“Piu vale un presente che due futuri,” said Riccabocca—­“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

“Chi non fa quondo puo, non puo fare quondo vuole”—­("He who will not when he may, when he will it shall have nay")—­answered Jackeymo, as sententiously as his master.  “And the Padrone should think in time that he must lay by for the dower of the poor signorina”—­(young lady.)

Riccabocca sighed, and made no reply.

“She must be that high now!” said Jackeymo, putting his band on some imaginary line a little above the balustrade.  Riccabocca’s eyes, raised over the spectacles, followed the hand.

“If the Padrone could but see her here”—­

“I thought I did!” muttered the Italian.

“He would never let her go from his side till she went to a husband’s,” continued Jackeymo.

“But this climate—­she could never stand it,” said Riccabocca, drawing his cloak round him, as a north wind took him in the rear.

“The orange-trees blossom even here with care,” said Jackeymo, turning back to draw down an awning where the orange-trees faced the north.  “See!” he added, as he returned with a sprig in fall bud.

Dr. Riccabocca bent over the blossom, and then placed it in his bosom.

“The other one should be there too.” said Jackeymo.

“To die—­as this does already!” answered Riccabocca.  “Say no more.”