The Twins, thus suddenly loosed from Teresina’s grasp, were swept along by the crowd, and when, a few moments later, she turned to look for them, they were no longer in sight.
Beppina clutched Beppo’s arm as they were pushed along by a fat man behind them. “We must find Teresina!” she shouted in his ear.
“We can’t get back!” Beppo shouted in reply, punching the fat man in the stomach with his elbow and pulling Beppina closer to his side; “and besides,” he went on in a lower key, “I’m glad to get away from her. We’ll have a good time by ourselves and go home when we get ready without being followed around by a nurse like two babies.”
“What will Mammina say?” gasped Beppina.
“She isn’t here, so she won’t say anything at all,” said naughty Beppo. Then he added with an important wag of his head; “Just you stick by me; I’ll take care of you.”
Beppina had her doubts, but she considered Beppo the most remarkable boy in the world, so she trotted obediently along with her hand in his, sure that he was equal to any situation that might arise.
For an hour or more the two children wandered about the piazza, carried hither and thither in the wake of the crowds. First they followed the black-cowled Misericordia Brothers as they bore away to the hospital a sick old man who had fallen in the street. Then they found a marionette show and stood entranced for a long time before it, watching the thrilling adventures of Pantalone. After that they crept into the dim Cathedral, now nearly empty of people, and watched the women who came to light their tapers at the Great Paschal Candle beside the altar. It was then that they discovered they were hungry, and, going out on the street, they refreshed themselves with oranges bought of a fruit-vendor.
If Teresina could have seen the children of the Marchesa as they stood sucking
oranges in the public street, it is likely she might have fainted with horror, and been carried away to the hospital by the black-robed Brothers of Mercy in her turn; but as it was, Teresina was not there to see. After searching the crowds distractedly for an hour, she had rushed back to the palace, hoping to find the Twins there before her, and turning the whole establishment into an uproar when she found they had not yet appeared.