“Of course,” said Annunziata.  “All Christians should be named Maria.”

“So they should,” agreed the lady.  “Do you ever tell people how old you are?”

“Yes,” said Annunziata, “if they wish to know.  Why not?”

The smile in the lady’s eyes shone brighter than ever.  “Do you think you could be persuaded to tell me?”

“With pleasure,” said Annunziata.  “I am eleven years and five months.  And you?”

“I am just twice as old.  I am twenty-two years and ten months.  So, when you are fifty, how old shall I be?”

“No,” said Annunziata, shaking her head.  “That trick has been tried with me before.  My friend Prospero has tried it with me.  You hope I will say that you will be a hundred.  But it is not so.  When I am fifty, you will be sixty-one, going on sixty-two.”

Still again the lady laughed, apparently with great amusement.

“What a little bundle of wisdom you are!” she exclaimed.

“Yes.  My friend Prospero also says that I am wise,” answered Annunziata.  “I like to see you laugh,” she mentioned, looking critically at the face above her.  “You have beautiful teeth, they are so white and shining, and so small, and your lips are so red.”

“Oh,” said the lady, laughing more merrily than ever.  “Then you must be very entertaining, and I will laugh a great deal.”

Still looking critically at the lady’s face, “Are you not,” demanded Annunziata, “the person who has come to visit the Signora Brandi?”

“Signora Brandi?” The lady considered.  “Yes, I suppose I must be.  At any rate, I am the person who has come to visit Frau Brandt.”

“Frao Branta?  We call her Signora Brandi here,” said Annunziata.  “Are you related to her?”

“No,” said the lady, who always seemed inclined to laugh, though Annunziata had no consciousness of being very entertaining.  “I am not related to her.  I am only her friend.”

“She is an Austrian,” said Annunziata.  “This castle belongs to Austrians.  Once upon a time, very long ago, before I was born, all this country belonged to Austrians.  Are you, too, an Austrian?”

“Yes.”  The lady nodded.  “I, too, am an Austrian.”

“And yet,” remarked Annunziata, “you speak Italian just as I do.”

“It is very good of you to say so,” laughed the lady.

“No—­it is the truth,” said Annunziata.

“But is it not good to tell the truth?” the lady asked.

“No,” said Annunziata.  “It is only a duty.”  And again she shook her head, slowly, darkly, with an effect of philosophic melancholy.  “That is very strange and very hard,” she pointed out.  “If you do not do that which is your duty, it is bad, and you are punished.  But if you do do it, that is not good,—­it is only what you ought to do, and you are not rewarded.”  And she fetched her breath in the saddest of sad little sighs.  Then, briskly covering her cheerfulness, “And you speak English, besides,” she said.