I didn’t care much about it then.  My husband traveled from place to place, telling his stories and singing his rhymes, and I went with him, and soon lost sight of my sister.  At last we came to Rome.  ’Tista was born there, and soon after I got some news of my old home from a wandering pedlar, who had passed through the village where I used to live.  My aunt was dead, and my sister had married,—­ married a rich inn-keeper; a match as far above our station as mine had been below it.  Well, Herr Ritter, my husband was badly hurt in a quarrel one evening in one of the squares.  Somebody insulted him before all the people as he was telling one of his stories, and his blood got up and he struck the man, and they fought; and my husband was brought home to me that night, half-murdered.  He didn’t live long.  He had had a heavy fall, I think, in that fight, for the back of his head was cut open, and he took brain-fever from it.  I did my best, but our money was scarce, and our child was too young to be left alone with a sick man, and I could get no work to do at home.  So one day, at noon, my husband died.  Poor Battista!  I could not help it!  I could not save him!  Ah Jesu! what a terrible thing poverty is! what a mournful thing it is to live!”

She shrouded her face in her hands, but not to weep, for when, after a little silence, she raised her large dark eyes again to meet the old German’s compassionate gaze, I saw that they were calm and tearless.

“After that, I used to leave little ’Tista in the care of a woman, next door to me, while I went out as a model.  I was handsome then, the painters said, and my hair and my complexion were worth something in the studio; but not for long.  My color faded, and my hair grew thin, for I pined and sorrowed day and night after the husband I had lost, and at last no one would give two scudi for me, so I took ’Tista and left Rome to tramp.  Sometimes I got hired out in the vine-harvest, and sometimes I sold fruit, or eggs, or fish in the markets, till at last I got a place as a servant in a big town, and ’Tista went to school a bit.  But seven months ago my mistress died, and her daughters wouldn’t keep me, because I had become weak and couldn’t do the work of their house as well as I used to do it.  And nobody else would take me, for all the people to whom I went said I looked halfway in my grave, and should be no use to them as a servant.  So I gave it up at last, and came on here and got this cottage, almost for nothing, though it’s something to me; but then they give me so little for my work, you see, in the town.  Well, Herr Ritter, I daresay you think my story a very long one, don’t you?  I am just near the end of it now.  I went into the town today, and while I was standing in the shop with my needlework, a lady came in.  The shop-woman, who was talking to me about the price of the things I had done, left me when the lady came in, and went