The steps to the upper part of the house were on the outside, as is common in the houses of the Campagna.
"How old is she ?" Paoluccio asked when she was gone.
"She must be twenty," answered Nanna.

"It must be ten years since her mother died, and her mother said she was ten years old.

She has eaten many loaves in this house." "She has worked for her food," said the innkeeper.

"And she is an honest girl." "What did you expect?
That I should let her be idle, or make eyes at the carters?
But you always defend her, because she is pretty, you ugly scamp!" Nanna uttered her taunt in a good-natured tone, but she glanced furtively at her husband to see the effect of her words, for it was not always safe to joke with Paoluccio.
"If I did not defend her," he answered, "you would beat the life out of her." "I daresay," replied Nanna, and filled her mouth with beans.
"But now," said Paoluccio, swallowing, "if you are not careful she will break all your bones.

She has the health of a horse." So the couple discussed matters amiably, while Regina was out of the way.
In a garret that had a small unglazed window looking to the north, the girl was bending over a wretched trestle-bed, which was literally the only piece of furniture in the room; and on the coarse mattress, stuffed with the husks and leaves of maize, lay all that the fever had left of Marcello Consalvi, shivering under a tattered brown blanket.