She shook her head slightly, evidently wishing to refuse, but very desirous of accepting, and her mica this time was almost polite.  I took the flask, which was covered with straw in the Italian fashion, and filling the glass, I offered it to her.

“Please drink it,” I said, “to bid us welcome to your country.”

She took the glass with her usual look, and emptied it at a draught, like a woman consumed with thirst, and then gave it back to me without even saying “Thank you.”

I then offered her the cherries.  “Please take some,” I said; “we shall be so glad if you will.”

Out of her corner she looked at all the fruit spread out beside her, and said so rapidly that I could scarcely follow her:  “A me non piacciono ne le ciriegie ne le susine; amo soltano le fragole.”

“What does she say?” Paul asked.

“That she does riot care for cherries or plums, but only for strawberries.”

I put a newspaper full of wild strawberries on her lap, and she ate them quickly, tossing them into her mouth from some distance in a coquettish and charming manner.

When she had finished the little red heap, which soon disappeared under the rapid action of her hands, I asked her: 

“What may I offer you now?”

“I will take a little chicken,” she replied.

She certainly devoured half of it, tearing it to pieces with the rapid movements of her jaws like some carnivorous animal.  Then she made up her mind to have some cherries, which she “did not like,” and then some plums, then some little cakes.  Then she said, “I have had enough,” and sat back in her corner.

I was much amused, and tried to make her eat more, insisting, in fact, till she suddenly flew into a rage, and flung such a furious mica at me, that I would no longer run the risk of spoiling her digestion.

I turned to my friend.  “My poor Paul,” I said, “I am afraid we have had our trouble for nothing.”

The night came on, one of those hot summer nights which extend their warm shade over the burning and exhausted earth.  Here and there, in the distance, by the sea, on capes and promontories, bright stars, which I was, at times, almost inclined to confound with lighthouses, began to shine on the dark horizon: 

The scent of the orange trees became more penetrating, and we breathed with delight, distending our lungs to inhale it more deeply.  The balmy air was soft, delicious, almost divine.

Suddenly I noticed something like a shower of stars under the dense shade of the trees along the line, where it was quite dark.  It might have been taken for drops of light, leaping, flying, playing and running among the leaves, or for small stars fallen from the skies in order to have an excursion on the earth; but they were only fireflies dancing a strange fiery ballet in the perfumed air.