"Hast thou aught new, Gelsomina?" repeated the Bravo, reading her
innocent face with his searching gaze.
"Thou art fortunate in not being sooner in the prison. I have just had a
visitor. Thou would'st not have liked to be seen, Carlo!"
"Thou knowest I have good reasons for coming masked. I might, or I might
not have disliked thy acquaintance, as he should have proved."
"Nay, now thou judgest wrong," returned the female, hastily--"I had no
other here but my cousin Annina."
"Dost thou think me jealous?" said the Bravo, smiling in kindness, as
he took her hand. "Had it been thy cousin Pietro, or Michele, or
Roberto, or any other youth of Venice, I should have no other dread than
that of being known."
"But it was only Annina--my cousin Annina, whom thou hast never
seen--and I have no cousins Pietro, and Michele, and Roberto. We are not
many, Carlo. Annina has a brother, but he never comes hither. Indeed it
is long since she has found it convenient to quit her trade to come to
this dreary place. Few children of sisters see each other so seldom as
Annina and I!"
"Thou art a good girl, Gessina, and art always to be found near thy
mother. Hast thou naught in particular for my ear?"
Again the soft eyes of Gelsomina, or Gessina, as she was familiarly
called, dropped to the floor; but raising them ere he could note the
circumstance, she hurriedly continued the discourse.
"I fear Annina will return, or I would go with thee at once.
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