'Ah, what shall I do?' she sighed, 'My mother will scold me terribly, and will tell the Padre that I am greedy.'
She was sighing still when her eyes fell on an old leather shoe which had been cast away behind the door. Her face all dimpled with mischief, Pepita soused this under a tap, and threw it into the soup.
'They will but think that the meat is tough!' she cried with a burst of laughter; but as the shoe fell into the boiling liquid her mother crossed the threshold.
'What have you done?' demanded she, peering into the pot. '_Madonnamia!_ Was ever an honest woman cursed with such a daughter?' And breathing out angry hopes that an Ogre would come and take her, she drove Pepita out of the house.
At that moment a rich young merchant was strolling by, and Pepita unwittingly rushed into his arms. A thing such as this had never happened to him before, and since he scarce knew what to do, he clasped her tightly while he considered. By the time he released her, Pepita's face was pink as apple blossom, and the tears that sparkled on it were for all the world like dewdrops on the petals of a flower. Something stirred in his breast, and he blushed even more than she; for when a man falls suddenly in love he knows not where he stands. Looking from one to the other, the wrath of Pepita's mother suddenly cooled.
[Illustration: Pepita rushed into his Arms.]
'Take her to wife,' she said, 'and you'll not get a bad bargain. True, she is nought in the house, but she can spin. And with all her faults she is not a scold.'
'One wants more in a wife than that!' said the merchant shrewdly, though the last of her statements went far with him, since his mother had a tongue. Looking into Pepita's eyes, which were heavenly blue, and sweet as an angel's, he lost his last qualm of doubt, and lifted her hand to his lips. Then he turned once more to the elder woman. 'I have vowed to my mother I will not wed without her free consent, but if your daughter meets with her approval, I will gladly do as you say.'
Guido's mother was in her seventieth year, and though she had never beheld a face more winning than merry Pepita's, it did not please her, and she gave her mind to finding a task which would prove beyond her powers.
