From tree to tree vines were trained trellis-wise, while between the rows of olive trees golden ears of corn swayed in the breeze.
"In a thousand ways," said Casanova appreciatively, "the sun brings increase." With even greater wealth of detail than before, Olivo recounted how he had acquired this fine estate, and how two great vintage years and two good harvests had made him a well-to-do, in fact a wealthy, man.
Casanova pursued the train of his own thoughts, attending to Olivo's narrative only in so far as was requisite to enable him from time to time to interpose a polite question or to make an appropriate comment.
Nothing claimed his interest until Olivo, after talking of all and sundry, came back to the topic of his family, and at length to Marcolina.

But Casanova learned little that was new.

She had lost her mother early.

Her father, Olivo's half-brother, had been a physician in Bologna.

Marcolina, while still a child, had astonished everyone by her precocious intelligence; but the marvel was soon staled by custom.