“Eh!  I should think so!  I see him every day.”

“Good.  He also sees you every day, and he sees how beautiful you are, and now he knows how good you are, because the little boy of the Son of the Fool saw you with that apoplexy of a Count in the garden to-day, and heard what you said, and came and told me, and I told Ruggiero because I knew how glad he would be.”

“Dio mio!” cried Teresina.  She had blushed scarlet while he was speaking, and she covered her face with both hands.

“You need not hide your face, Teresina,” said Bastianello, with a little emotion.  “You can show it to every one after what you have done.  And so I will go on, and you must listen.  Ruggiero is not a great signore like the Count of San Miniato, but he is a man.  And he has two arms which are good, and two fists as hard as an ox’s hoofs, and he can break horse-shoes with his hands.”

“Can you do that?” asked Teresina with an admiring look.

“Since you ask me—­yes, I can.  But Ruggiero did it before I could, and showed me how, and no one else here can do it at all.  And moreover Ruggiero is a quiet man and does not drink nor play at the lotto, and there is no harm in a game of beggar-my-neighbour for a pipe of tobacco, on a long voyage when there is no work to be done, and—­”

“Yes, I know,” said Teresina, interrupting him.  “You are very much alike, you too.  But what has this about Ruggiero to do with me, that you tell me it all?”

“Who goes slowly, goes safely, and who goes safely goes far,” answered Bastianello.  “Listen to me.  Ruggiero has also seven hundred and sixty-three francs in the bank, and will soon have more, because he saves his money carefully, though he is not stingy.  And Ruggiero, if you will have him, will work for you, and I will also work for you, and you shall have a good house, and plenty to eat and good clothes besides the gold—­”

“But Bastianello mio!” cried Teresina, who had suspected what was coming, “I do not want to marry Ruggiero at all.”

She clasped her hands and gazed into the sailor’s eyes with a pretty look of confusion and regret.

“You do not want to marry Ruggiero!” Bastianello’s expression certainly betrayed more surprise than disappointment.  But he had honestly pleaded his brother’s cause.  “Then you do not love him,” he said, as though unable to recover from his astonishment.

“But no—­I do not love him at all, though he is so handsome and good.”

“Madonna mia!” exclaimed Bastianello, turning sharply round and moving away a step or two.  He was in great perturbation of spirit, for he loved the girl dearly, and he began to fear that he had not done his best for Ruggiero.

“But you did love him a few days ago,” he said, coming back to Teresina’s side.

“Indeed, I never did!” she said.

“Nor any one else?” asked Bastianello suddenly.

“Eh!  I did not say that,” answered the girl, blushing a little and looking down.