always taken his money for housekeeping, so he had not enough to leave the town, and she came to the shop in the daytime and made such a disturbance that he was frightened into returning.  He dreamt of disguising himself in one of his own theatrical wigs and escaping so, but the idea was too like some of those contrapuntal combinations which, as Cherubini says, may be employed in a study-fugue, but which in practical music, as in practical life, have to be weeded out by artificial selection.

Then his mother fell ill, and the family sent him the money to go home to embrace her.  The widow had put some of his money by for an emergency.  She was not going to lose sight of him again, especially now that she knew about Maria; she bought a ticket and came too.  They spent the night at her brother’s house in Catania and Alfio was to go next day to his village.  She said she would come too, he said that nothing would induce him to take her with him.  She implored and stormed and spat and swore, knowing all the time she could not appear in his village as belonging to him, and fearing that he intended to manipulate his going home alone into a way of escape.  She pretended to acquiesce but, in the morning, as he was passing through the Quattro Canti she was there, disguised as a man in her brother’s clothes, and before Alfio could recognise her she had stabbed him in the back and he fell down dead.

“But, Peppino,” I exclaimed, “this is a worse tragedy than the other.  What a horrible woman!”

“The Padre Eterno was very angry that day when he made the bad woman.”

“Where is she now?”

“In prison.”

“That is no satisfaction to poor Alfio.”

“No; and not satisfaction to his family.  His mother died of grief during that they were telling her his murder.”

“And Maria?”

“Maria is telling that she would becoming a monkey-woman.”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you say in English the lady-priest, the monaca?”

“Oh! yes,—a nun.  But it seems a pity she should take such a serious step.  It is a dreadful story, Peppino.”

“Yes; and I am fortunate because I also meet the bad woman.”

“Was Alfio’s widow a friend of yours?”

“No; I meet her in London.”

“I’m glad she did not stab you.”

“Not the widow—some other woman.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“It is difficult to understand—difficult to be sure when it is the bad woman.  The bad woman is like mosquitoes—not wanted but would not go away.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“When I was in London, I was at this place where is the—please, what is campo?  No, not campo, but where is the beast with the horn in the head—the cervo?”

“Ah! yes, the deer.  You mean the Zoological Gardens.”

“No, no.  This place where is the villa with the red palazzo and the chief labours of painting and beds and chinesy images are over the place where is coming the fire in the winter-time, and on the wall is also the armatura and the deer it is in the trees on the side of the river.”

“I believe you mean Hampton Court.”

“Yes, and was telling to the lady—she was a very kind lady—”

“But please, what lady?  Alfio’s widow was not at Hampton Court?”

“She was the wife of the plumber.”

“I am afraid I am very stupid, Peppino, but I don’t seem to get hold of it.  Who is the plumber?”

“I meet him at Margate; also his lady, his wife; they invite me to their house; I accept their invitation.”

“But Margate is not Hampton Court.”

“No, they inhabit Hampton Court; they go to Margate for the villeggiatura, for the—how do you say?—for the baths of the sea.”

“Oh, now I understand.  You met them at Margate and they invited you to call on them at their house at Hampton Court.”

“Of course, yes.  And when I arrive, the husband, the plumber, he went away with his tools for his work in a sack, and his lady she says to me, ‘Please sit down.’  And we talk together.  She was a very kind lady.  And presently—she was on the sofa by the window and I was in a chair by the fire—presently her husband return.  I was like a fish not in his water, but oh! it was my salvation.  Why must he be leaving us together?  She was a very kind lady.  And then to be returning without noise, so soon and so sudden.  Do you think—?”

I did not know.  It looked rather like it, but the psychology of the Hampton Court plumber resembles the Italian music of the early part of last century in that it is but little studied among us.  So I congratulated him on his escape, and inquired whether any of Alfio’s compositions had been published.

“Alfio don’t be writing no compositions.”

“He told me he was composing music.”

“Alfio never compose something.  Too busy.  Look here, the student that shall be always making the exercise he don’t be never composing the music.”

“But that polka?  Don’t you remember he came over to the albergo and played us his polka?”

“Alfio don’t write the polka.  His professor gave him the polka to copy for study.”

“Oh! I see.  Well, now don’t you think we have had enough tragedies?  Has nothing pleasant happened in the town since—?  What a stupid question!  Here is Brancaccia bringing the answer.”

Brancaccia not only brought the baby, she also brought to show me the clothes in which he had been christened, just as on my last visit, before he was born, she had brought and shown me the clothes in which she had been married.  I have a confused recollection of fine muslin and embroidery and pretty gay ribbons.  I remember more clearly her necklace of Sicilian amber which has been in the family for generations and, in the natural order of things, will one day be passed on to the wife of Ricuzzu.  Each piece of amber is circular, flat underneath and convex above, and is surrounded with a fine golden band whereby it is joined to the next, side by side.  The two smallest, at the back of the wearer’s neck, near the clasp, are about as big as threepenny bits, and the pieces increase in size through sixpences, shillings, florins, half-crowns, until the one in the middle on her breast is nearly as large as a five-shilling piece.  They are all sorts of colours, honey-yellow, rich orange, Venetian red, brown sherry, some clear and some clouded, some have insects in them, some when held properly in the sunlight, have a fluorescent, hazy tinge like the blue in a horse’s eye, some are a peacock-green and others a deep purple.  The largest piece is green, and has objects in it which Brancaccia says are cherry-blossoms.  Peppino accepts his wife’s view because it amuses him to call this piece The Field of Enna, where Proserpine was gathering flowers when Pluto carried her off, and these are the flowers she was gathering.  But he knows that this kind of amber is called Simetite, because it is the fossilised resin of some prehistoric tree that used to grow

on the upper reaches of the river Simeto which rises at the back of Etna, beyond Bronte, and falls into the sea near Catania; whereas Castrogiovanni, which is the modern Enna, is not on the Simeto.  Castrogiovanni is, however, not far from the upper part of another river, which falls into the Simeto near the sea.  And he argues that if The Field of Enna was washed down the Castrogiovanni river it may still have exuded from a tree of the same kind as those that used to grow on the Simeto, and in any case it had to pass through the mouth of the Simeto