“Is the boy living?” asked Vansittart, gently.
“Living! Yes, he is in the next room; he is the joy of our lives,” answered the aunt.
Lisa started up from the supper table, with her finger on her lips, and went across the room, beckoning to Vansittart to follow. She opened a door, cautiously, noiselessly, and led him into a bedroom, where, by the faint glimmer of a night-light, he saw a boy lying in a little cot beside the ancient four-post bed, a boy who was the image of one of Guido’s child-angels—full round cheeks, with a crimson glow upon their olive clearness, lips like Cupid’s bow, long dark lashes fringing blue-veined eyelids, and dark brown hair waving in loose curls about the broad forehead. Truly a beautiful boy! Vansittart could not withhold his praises of that childish sleeper.
“You are very fond of him,” he said gently, as Lisa stooped to rearrange the blanket over the child’s round and dimpled arm, pressing a kiss upon the fat little hand before she covered it.
“Oh, I adore him. He is all in the world I have to love, except la Zia.”
“And you have had a hard time of it, through my fault,” said Vansittart, gravely, as they went back to the sitting-room.
It was one o’clock by the little American clock on the chimney-piece—one by the clock of the church in Covent Garden, which pealed its single stroke with solemn sound as they resumed their seats by the shabby round table, in the light of the paraffin lamp; but, late as it was, neither Lisa nor her aunt seemed in any hurry to get rid of their visitor, nor did he mean to go until he had made a compact with them—a compact which should set his mind at rest as to the future.
“How did you come from the lace factory at Venice to the stage of Covent Garden?” he asked. “This is a long way for you to have travelled, without a friend to help you along.”
“We had a friend,” answered Lisa. “My good old music-master. We lost sight of him when our troubles began; but he met me one day as I was leaving the factory—it was when my baby was three months old—and he stopped to talk to me. He was shocked to see me so thin and pale, and when I told him how poor we were—la Zia and I—he asked me why I did not turn my voice to account. He always used to praise my voice when Signor Smitz asked him how I got on with my education. I had a voice that was worth money, he said. And now in our poverty he was very good to us. He gave me more lessons, without a sous, to be paid for only when I should be earning plenty of money; and after he had taught me a good many choruses in Verdi’s operas, he gave me a letter to the Impresario at Milan, and he lent us the money for the journey to Milan, and once there all went well with us. I was engaged to sing in the chorus, and I sang there for two seasons, and la Zia and I were able to live comfortably and to save money, until one day, when the Scala was closed, an English Impresario came to Milan, to engage singers for the London season, and I, who had always wanted to go to London, went to him, and asked him to engage me, and it was all settled in a few minutes. We have been a year and a half in England, la Zia and I, sometimes travelling with the opera company, but mostly in London.”
“And you have made wonderful progress in our language, Signora.”