And she was also fearfully dirty, her grey wavy hair dishevelled and her skirt and jacket soiled and slit, revealing glimpses of grimy flesh.

On her knees she held a sleeping infant, her last-born, at whom she gazed like one overwhelmed and courageless, like a beast of burden resigned to her fate.
"_Bene, bene,_" said she, raising her head, "it's the gentleman who came to give me a crown because he saw you crying.

And he's come back to see us with some friends.

Well, well, there are some good hearts in the world after all." Then she related their story, but in a spiritless way, without seeking to move her visitors.

She was called Giacinta, it appeared, and had married a mason, one Tomaso Gozzo, by whom she had had seven children, Pierina, then Tito, a big fellow of eighteen, then four more girls, each at an interval of two years, and finally the infant, a boy, whom she now had on her lap.