"Where? you may well ask! gone up one of those steep mountains to Colla on a donkey."
"Si! well, and why not?"
"Why not? Because it is very dangerous, and I think fellows who take other people's children from them ought at least to give notice of it."
"Si! well," was Stefano's rejoinder, "that's a fine ride up to Colla, and there are more books there than there are days in the year, and pictures, and——"
"Come now, Stefano," his wife called, "it is time to stop thy talking, and to get the luncheon ready. Gone to Colla, do you say, Mrs. Ingleby?—a very pretty excursion; and there, high up in the heart of the hills, is a wonderful library of books, and many fine pictures, collected by a good priest, who starved himself to buy them and store them there."
But Ingleby was not to be interested in any details of the library at Colla, which is visited with so much delight by many who spend a winter at San Remo. She was anxious about Dorothy, and Stefano said,—
"It will be wonderful if they are home before sunset."
"Home before sunset!" exclaimed poor Ingleby; "well, I should think Mrs. Crawley will have sense enough for that, though I don't think much of her wisdom, spoiling that baby of three years old as she does."
Stefano chuckled.
"Ah, si! but others are spoiled, as well as Bambino Bobbo."