'Not that I mind that so particularly; but what will your father say? I came down to consult with him about it. I——'
'There he is!' said Italia, quickly turning her head at the sound of a heavy step, and adding hastily: 'Do tell him, Dino—tell him everything; you know how good he is'—she sprang to open the door.
The first person to enter, blown into the room, as it seemed, by a stronger gust of wind, was a small, thin woman of about forty or forty-five. Her face and shoulders were closely muffled in a woollen shawl, which Italia promptly removed and threw into a corner.
'Dear Lucia, how good of you to come to us on such a horrible night—'
'If you would not mind—if you will give it to me I will fold it up properly; things get so easily worn,' the new-comer murmured, looking apologetically at them all. And then she put up both her hands—the thin, white hands of a sewing woman—and patted the bands of her shining black hair; her dress, too, was black, and scrupulously neat, with many shining beads and buttons upon it.
'I am so glad to see you,' Italia repeated, looking down at the little woman with an indescribable friendliness and compassion in her own kind eyes.
'Ay, it was rough work getting here for the poor little woman. I left her for half a minute while I stopped to look at the boat, and per Bacco! she came in ahead of me in the race. I could not find her out there in the dark; I thought she had been blown clean away, I did,' observed Sor Drea with a loud, good-natured laugh. He fastened the door and came up slowly to the fireside,—a short, strongly-built figure, with a decided lurch in his walk. He came up and laid his hand upon Italia's shoulder. 'Well, my little girl? Ah! this now is what I like,' the old man said, glancing over with a broad, cordial smile at Dino; 'this is the sort of thing that does a man's heart good, to come in and find supper ready, and a good fire, and all the old faces. Who wants to eat alone? Alone? Why, one isn't comfortable alone even in Paradise; one needs an angel or two if it was only just for company. The blessed saints, they know better than to live separate, they do.'
'How do you know, father?' asked Italia, with a laugh.
'Perhaps I've met them. Perhaps I've had an angel or two to live with—there's no telling,' said her father, looking down at her fondly. 'Ask the youngster over there. Why, Lord bless you, my girl, when I was his age—— But there, there, a sound man is a young man, and the only old men are the dead ones. What's the matter with the lad? What ails you, boy? Surely no one here can have been vexing you? You can't have been quarrelling with my little girl?' But at that—
'Quarrelling with Italia!' and 'Father!' they both protested in one breath.