"But it will soon be over now, my child," he said,—"all the trouble and the nursing. You have been very good to the poor forestiere since the povera went to the blessed saints. I shall soon see her again, and Anita, and the little Giulio, in the better country that the signorina was reading about,—better, she says, than the patria itself, with its olives and vines. Ah! I think I see it again, when I dream."
Such a speech as this always melted poor Nelly into tears; and, seeing the pain it gave her, he did not often refer to his approaching death. To Lucy, however, he sometimes spoke of his concern for the future lot of his adopted daughter, who was again to be left desolate. Lucy herself had been thinking a good deal about it, and wondering whether she could induce her aunt to take Nelly. Amy, however, arranged the matter unexpectedly. She had been asking Lucy, with great earnestness, what poor Nelly would do when the organ-grinder should die; and when Mrs. Brooke next came into the room, she surprised her with the question, "Mamma, may Nelly come and live here when the organ-grinder dies?"
Mrs. Brooke looked bewildered, until Lucy explained the matter. She hesitated, and would have put Amy off with the promise that she "would see about it." But Amy was so anxious to have the point settled, that her mother at last gave the absolute promise she asked; and Lucy had the satisfaction of announcing to poor Antonio, the next time she visited him, to his great relief and satisfaction, that Nelly's future home, so long as she desired it, should be with Mrs. Brooke.
XVI.
Darkness and Light.
"Tell me the old, old story,
If you would really be
In any time of trouble
A comforter to me."