“Oh? How can you know? What is it?”
“I think your name is Rosabella.”
“Ah, then you are wrong. My name is Elisabetta. But in Naples everybody says Zabetta. And yours?”
“Guess.”
“Oh, I cannot guess. Not—not Federico?”
“Do I look as if my name were Federico?”
She surveyed me gravely for a minute, then shook her head pensively. “No; I do not think your name is Federico.”
And therewith I told her my name, and made her repeat it till she could pronounce it without a struggle.
It sounded very pretty, coming from her pretty lips, quite Southern and romantic, with its r’s tremendously enriched.
“Anyhow, I know your age,” said I.