Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-06-14

Saucy or tongue
 and keen of wit. !
 &kk%- She had tn straight brows and lustrous eyes, and dusky hower-like beauty of the race from which she sprung-the Tuscan race, who lived the free honest, laborious life of sons and daughters of the soil, and were devoted to their birth. place, and loved their simple homes on the wind-blown hills, and their fields of figs and olives. and vines and grain, as though they were life's fairest and noblest possessions as indeed they were to them.
 They were sisters. Nita and Genna, but they were thoroughly unlike-the ono SC beautiful, the other so plain. Nita was the younger, there being twelve years between them, and at first tho elder sister had felt half jealous of the little brown-eyed babe, with it's blossom of Q mouth. and its fossy siken curls, and the love and tenderness it won from the mother, who never seemed the same after it had come. That feeling, how ever. passed off.
 Each year Genna grew fonder of the little, laughing, toddling child, with her face like the bud of the rose e-laurel, and her graceful, , supple form, and her feet that seemed always restless and tireless, fitting about from place to place, like the bright-winged butterflies on the flower stems without. True, she had all the care and caresses, the devotion and labor of tho house. True, that each year widened the difference between them, for as she grew to maidenhood and loveliness the other grew older and coarSer and commoner, many of the Tuscan women do grow when the first flush of youth is past. And then their mother i died and left Nita to her sisters care, and with her last breath besought her teuderest guardianship for her pretty, spoiled, willful ! darling.
 An uncle came to tend the farm, and take charge of them, Nita being then 16. He was a rough, fierce, moody man, though of gen. l erous temper and honest to the core. But Nita dsliked him always, and he was forever [ grumbling at her for her idleness, her saucy | rebollous tongue, her aversion to housekeep- ing and her love of dancing and pleasure. l Tho women around were all strong, useful, l hard-working, simple, and chaste; but Nita, gay, insolent, saucy Nita who laughed at her numerous lovers, and delighted in nothing so much as the furious jealousy she raised l she was unlike all these, and offended him in every way and with little compunction ! penitence for the offence. So It came about that her sister often had hard work to keep ! peace between them, and was hard beset sometimes to screen Nita'a offenses from old | Maso's eyes, and do her sisters share of household labor as we'll as her own.
 Their cottage was a large low building, set high on the hills, with groups of expresses and walnut trees around it and great slope of fields and vineyard or. either side; other cot tages and fields owned by different contadini lay here and there, the nearest being mile from their dwelling; and far below lay the town, where fairs sometimes took place, and where wandering players set up their booths, and the young.men and maidens met for the dancing and merry-making that wore the delight of Nita's heart.
 Once painter made a picture of Nita, as he saw her standing in the sunlight with her arch brown eyes shining under her great straw hat, and the beautiful, supple, girlish form set against the glow of. peoples and gold of corn and gleaming amber sky. Genna begged him so earnestly for copy of it that he gave her ono, and at the next fair she secured frame for it, and hung it up in the little, bare, white-walled kitchen, as the fairest and most exquisite of all their possessions.
 Nita liked to see it there. It was a living memento of the fower-ike beauty of which she was so vain; and, indeed, who could blame her that she was, for all the country side were ever praising and extolling her loveliness, and the young men quarreled about her from day to day? To win woman's envy and arouse mems jealousy is the surest acknowledgement of woman's beauty that she can ever hope to win. Nita had won it. and the triumph gratihed her far too we'll for Genna's liking-far too well for her own peace.
 One summers day the whole village was keeping the feast of Corpus Christi; all the country people from far and near wore com. ing in holiday dress, and bells were ringing over tn, hills from every village chapel
 while the long procession wound it's way with silllen banners waving. and priestly vest ments shining in !the sun. and masses ol flowers and garlands of leaves borne aloft and the contadini in their white linen dresses and the children chanting the "Laus Dec with their young lovely voices to which mol ody seemed as natural as song is to the birds.
 Genna and Nita walked in tho procession Nita glancing ever and anon at her compan
 ions with pretty airs of coquetry that not ever l the soemnity of the occasion could subdue
 and Genna with downcast eyes and grav sweet lips, parted in the melodious chant il which she joined, and no thought in he heart save of the words she sang, as the pro
 cession wound it's way through the wavin, wheat and under the boughs where the rec cherries shone in the monday sunlight
 man lying lazily under the shade of tn
 wayside trees looked up with indolent amuse ment as the procession went slowly by. I chanced that Nita, walking outside and ol the road near to him, looked also, half GU riously, half shyly, at the strange face. II
 met her glance and returned it with one c
 bold admiration that sent the rich hot colo to her checks, and brought the heavy long
 lashed eyelids down to cover the gIoriou U eyes. Then she passed on.
 U The strangers glance followed her wit something of interest and surprise; then b U hastily drew outa sketch-book and dashed i . with bold rapid strokes that long, white
 winding line, the dark background of hill:
 md the face that had met his eyes a momen