Mrs. Riley glided down across the door-step, and, with all the insinuation of her s.e.x and nation, demanded:--
"What"d he tell ye? Ah! he didn"t tell ye nawthing! Ha, ha! there wasn"
nawthing to tell!" But Richling slipped away.
Mrs. Riley shook her finger: "Ah, ye"re a wicket joker, Mr. Richlin". I didn"t think that o" the likes of a gintleman like you, anyhow!" She shook her finger again as she withdrew into the house, smiling broadly all the way in to the cradle, where she kissed and kissed again her ruddy, chubby, sleeping boy.
Ristofalo came often. He was a man of simple words, and of few thoughts of the kind that were available in conversation; but his personal adventures had begun almost with infancy, and followed one another in close and strange succession over lands and seas ever since. He could therefore talk best about himself, though he talked modestly. "These things to hear would Desdemona seriously incline," and there came times when even a tear was not wanting to gem the poetry of the situation.
"And ye might have saved yerself from all that," was sometimes her note of sympathy. But when he asked how she silently dried her eyes.
Sometimes his experiences had been intensely ludicrous, and Mrs. Riley would laugh until in pure self-oblivion she smote her thigh with her palm, or laid her hand so smartly against his shoulder as to tip him half off his seat.
"Ye didn"t!"
"Yes."
"Ah! Get out wid ye, Raphael Ristofalo,--to be telling me that for the trooth!"
At one such time she was about to give him a second push, but he took the hand in his, and quietly kept it to the end of his story.
He lingered late that evening, but at length took his hat from under his chair, rose, and extended his hand.
"Man alive!" she cried, "that"s my _hand_, sur, I"d have ye to know.
Begahn wid ye! Lookut heere! What"s the reason ye make it so long atween yer visits, eh? Tell me that. Ah--ah--ye"ve no need fur to tell me, Mr.
Ristofalo! Ah--now don"t tell a lie!"
"Too busy. Come all time--wasn"t too busy."
"Ha, ha! Yes, yes; ye"re too busy. Of coorse ye"re too busy. Oh, yes! ye _air_ too busy--a-courtin" thim I-talian froot gerls around the Frinch Mairket. Ah! I"ll bet two bits ye"re a bouncer! Ah, don"t tell me. I know ye, ye villain! Some o" thim"s a-waitin" fur ye now, ha, ha! Go!
And don"t ye nivver come back heere anny more. D"ye mind?"
"Aw righ"." The Italian took her hand for the third time and held it, standing in his simple square way before her and wearing his gentle smile as he looked her in the eye. "Good-by, Kate."
Her eye quailed. Her hand pulled a little helplessly and in a meek voice she said:--
"That"s not right for you to do me that a-way, Mr. Ristofalo. I"ve got a handle to my name, sur."
She threw some gentle rebuke into her glance, and turned it upon him. He met it with that same amiable absence of emotion that was always in his look.
"Kate too short by itself?" he asked. "Aw righ"; make it Kate Ristofalo."
"No," said Mrs. Riley, averting and drooping her face.
"Take good care of you," said the Italian; "you and Mike. Always be kind. Good care."
Mrs. Riley turned with sudden fervor.
"Good cayre!--Mr. Ristofalo," she exclaimed, lifting her free hand and touching her bosom with the points of her fingers, "ye don"t know the hairt of a woman, surr! No-o-o, surr! It"s _love_ we wants! "The hairt as has trooly loved nivver furgits, but as trooly loves ahn to the tlose!""
"Yes," said the Italian; "yes," nodding and ever smiling, "da.s.s aw righ"."
But she:--
"Ah! it"s no use fur you to be a-talkin" an" a-pallaverin" to Kate Riley when ye don"t be lovin" her, Mr. Ristofalo, an" ye know ye don"t."
A tear glistened in her eye.
"Yes, love you," said the Italian; "course, love you."
He did not move a foot or change the expression of a feature.
"H-yes!" said the widow. "H-yes!" she panted. "H-yes, a little! A little, Mr. Ristofalo! But I want"--she pressed her hand hard upon her bosom, and raised her eyes aloft--"I want to be--h--h--h-adaured above all the e"rth!"
"Aw righ"," said Ristofalo; "das aw righ"; yes--door above all you worth."
"Raphael Ristofalo," she said, "ye"re a-deceivin" me! Ye came heere whin n.o.body axed ye,--an" that ye know is a fact, surr,--an" made yerself agree"ble to a poor, unsuspectin" widdah, an" [_tears_] rabbed me o" mie hairt, ye did; whin I nivver intinded to git married ag"in."
"Don"t cry, Kate--Kate Ristofalo," quietly observed the Italian, getting an arm around her waist, and laying a hand on the farther cheek. "Kate Ristofalo."
"Shut!" she exclaimed, turning with playful fierceness, and proudly drawing back her head; "shut! Hah! It"s Kate Ristofalo, is it? Ah, ye think so? Hah-h! It"ll be ad least two weeks yet before the priest will be after giving you the right to call me that!"
And, in fact, an entire fortnight did pa.s.s before they were married.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI.
WHAT NAME?
Richling in Dr. Sevier"s library, one evening in early May, gave him great amus.e.m.e.nt by an account of the Ristofalo-Riley wedding. He had attended it only the night before. The Doctor had received an invitation, but had pleaded previous engagements.
"But I am glad you went," he said to Richling; "however, go on with your account."
"Oh! I was glad to go. And I"m certainly glad I went."
Richling proceeded with the recital. The Doctor smiled. It was very droll,--the description of persons and costumes. Richling was quite another than his usual restrained self this evening. Oddly enough, too, for this was but his second visit; the confinement of his work was almost like an imprisonment, it was so constant. The Doctor had never seen him in just such a glow. He even mimicked the brogue of two or three Irish gentlemen, and the soft, outlandish swing in the English of one or two Sicilians. He did it all so well that, when he gave an instance of some of the broad Hibernian repartee he had heard, the Doctor actually laughed audibly. One of his young-lady cousins on some pretext opened a door, and stole a glance within to see what could have produced a thing so extraordinary.
"Come in, Laura; come in! Tell Bess to come in."
The Doctor introduced Richling with due ceremony Richling could not, of course, after this accession of numbers, go on being funny. The mistake was trivial, but all saw it. Still the meeting was pleasant. The girls were very intelligent and vivacious. Richling found a certain refreshment in their graceful manners, like what we sometimes feel in catching the scent of some long-forgotten perfume. They had not been told all his history, but had heard enough to make them curious to see and speak to him. They were evidently pleased with him, and Dr. Sevier, observing this, betrayed an air that was much like triumph. But after a while they went as they had come.
"Doctor," said Richling, smiling until Dr. Sevier wondered silently what possessed the fellow, "excuse me for bringing this here. But I find it so impossible to get to your office"-- He moved nearer the Doctor"s table and put his hand into his bosom.
"What"s that?" asked the Doctor, frowning heavily. Richling smiled still broader than before.