. . .Gaspare outdid them all, for they only looked gay while he looked mad with joy.[Pg 69] And to-day, at this moment, he felt exultant. He had a padrona to whom he was devoted with that peculiar sensitive devotion of the Sicilian which, once it is fully aroused, is tremendous in its strength and jealous in its doggedness. He was in command of Lucrezia, and was respectfully looked up to by all his boy friends of Marechiaro as one who could dispense patronage, being a sort of purse-bearer and conductor of rich forestieri in a strange land. Even Sebastiano, a personage rather apt to be a little haughty in his physical strength, and, though no longer a brigand, no great respecter of others, showed him to-day a certain deference which elated his boyish spirit. And all his elation, all his joy in the present and hopes for the future, he let out in the dance. To dance the tarantella almost intoxicated him, even when he only danced it in the village among the contadini, but to-d. . . Read More