When his gentle, beseeching cooing failed to attract, he resorted to bolder methods, flying about the Square, and lingering longer than was his wont among neighboring nests, until he chanced upon a pigeon that took his fancy.
She was a modest little thing, soft drab in color, and not as strikingly marked as he, but she was popular with the birds about, and Chico had to fight one or two lusty rivals before he won her for himself.
The children watched it all with fascinated interest, and when one morning they found her by his side on the ledge outside his nest, they were fairly beside themselves with delight.
All day long they perched together, billing and cooing to their hearts' content, "the prettiest sight in Venice," as all agreed who saw them.
"Coo-oo," he would begin, and she would answer softly. Then they would join in "Coo-oos coo-oo-oo. Ruk-at-a-coo, coo-oo."
Sometimes he would playfully ruffle her feathers, and she would respond by turning to him so coquettishly that they would touch their bills together, so the hours would as they billed and cooed in their love-making.
It was Maria who named the dainty little mate, calling her Pepita, from the first time she saw her by Chico's side. But it was Paolo who declared he could give a pretty good guess as to what they were saying to each other in their soft pigeon language.
"Well, what is it?" Andrea asked incredulously.
"She wants him to help her fix up the old nest," he asserted in a tone of confidence that greatly impressed his audience; "like the rest of the women-folks, she isn't satisfied with it as it is, I don't know as I blame her—it's a pretty poor excuse for a home, even if Chico did manage to make it do while he was a bachelor."
The children's faith in the old man increased tenfold when, the very next day, they discovered Pepita returning from a short flight with a few coarse straws in her beak, while in another moment Chico came flying around the corner of the church with half a dozen more.