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On the following Sunday, dressed in the stiff black clothes in which he looked so much less well than in the ragged shirt and trousers of every day, he went up to High Mass at the parish church and placed himself so that he could have a good look at the young woman.

Although he initially refuses Assunta, Salvatore decides to consider her marriage proposal, and he takes a seat in church that allows him to observe her closely. He dresses up for this occasion in his best clothes, which the narrator opines are less flattering than his everyday clothes. The observation suggests that Salvatore belongs in the natural, wild world more than he does in the formal atmosphere of the church. By having Salvatore truly see Assunta's worth in a church on Sunday, Maugham again ties religion into the concept of goodness.

Salvatore had enormous hands, like legs of mutton, coarse and hard from constant toil, but when he bathed his children, holding them so tenderly, drying them with delicate care, upon my word they were like flowers. He would seat the naked baby on the palm of his hand and hold him up, laughing a little at his smallness . . .

By the end of the story, Salvatore has grown into a sizeable man with calloused skin from a lifetime of hard work, but he still retains the childish goodness that he possessed when he was a young boy. Throughout the story, the narrator comments on the consistency of the kindness in Salvatore's eyes from his childhood through his adulthood. Despite his size and rough exterior, Salvatore's goodness shows in the delicate way he handles his children and how much he enjoys the simplest of moments with them.

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