After bemoaning and
pitying himself to his satisfaction he wiped his eyes, and sat
down by the side of my grandmother, giving her to understand
that he was very much pleased with her appearance; adding
that, if agreeable to her, he should like the privilege of paying
his addresses to her. While vainly endeavoring to make the
excellent old lady comprehend his very flattering proposition,
he was interrupted by the return of my father, who, at once
understanding the matter, turned him out of doors without
ceremony.
(1) See Ezekiel viii. 3.
On one occasion, a few years ago, on my return from the field
at evening, I was told that a foreigner had asked for lodgings
during the night, but that, influenced by his dark, repulsive
appearance, my mother had very reluctantly refused his request.
I found her by no means satisfied with her decision. "What if a
son of mine was in a strange land?" she inquired, self-
reproachfully. Greatly to her relief, I volunteered to go in
pursuit of the wanderer, and, taking a cross-path over the
fields, soon overtook him. He had just been rejected at the
house of our nearest neighbor, and was standing in a state of
dubious perplexity in the street. He was an olive-
complexioned, black-bearded Italian, with an eye like a live
coal, such a face as perchance looks out on the traveller in the
passes of the Abruzzi,(1)--one of those bandit visages which
Salvator(2) has painted.
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