"Are my eyes," he asked himself
with horror, "are they really like the eyes of a cow?" "Alas!" he
was compelled to answer, "they are only too sadly, sadly like them."
And he asked those of his playmates whom he best knew and trusted
whether it was indeed true that his eyes were like the eyes of a cow,
but he got no comfort from any of them, for they one and all laughed
at him and said that they were not only like, but very like. Then
grief consumed his soul, and he could eat no food, till one day the
loveliest girl in the place said to him:
"Gaetano, my grandmother is ill and cannot get her firewood; come
with me to the bosco this evening and help me to bring her a load or
two, will you?"
And he said he would go.
So when the sun was well down and the cool night air was sauntering
under the chestnuts, the pair sat together cheek to cheek and with
their arms round each other's waists.
"O Gaetano," she exclaimed, "I do love you so very dearly. When you
look at me your eyes are like--they are like the eyes"--here she
faltered a little--"the eyes of a cow."
Thenceforward he cared not . . .
And so on.
A Divorce Novelette
The hero and heroine are engaged against their wishes. They like one
another very well but each is in love with some one else;
nevertheless, under an uncle's will, they forfeit large property
unless they marry one another, so they get married, making no secret
to one another that they dislike it very much.
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