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"Long ago," said the charwoman, "a long long while ago, I dwelt in my father's cottage in Aragona. I had naught to do in all those sunny days but to tend his garden, or sing; unless in winter I sometimes fetched pails of water for my mother from the stream if the well in our garden were frozen. I think the days of those summers were sunnier than those we have now, and the Springs were more sudden and joyous; and I remember a glory about the woods in autumn, aye, and a splendour about those winter evenings, that I have not seen, ah me, this many a year. So, having naught else to do, I grew in beautiful seasons and breathed and saw loveliness, and through no merit of mine, but only through borrowing in all idleness of God's munificence through listless years, I grew beautiful. Yes, young man," for some expression must have changed on the youth's face, "charwomen were beautiful once.
"I had not loved, for of those that came sometimes with guitars at twilight, and played them near our garden, none had a splendour fairer than my daydreams, and they were of Aragona.