Her frown disappeared. It was certainly very nice to be addressed by so high-sounding a title. She wished she could get Delia to call her signorita. But no; she felt sure that Delia never would.
"Pshaw! It's only a joke!" said Larry, after a moment. "Somebody thinks this is April-fool Day, I guess."
"Have patience for a leetle minute, please," said the man, as he cast away the packing bit by bit. The children watched him with eager interest. By and by he took out a little bunch of lilies of the valley, which he handed to Abby with a low bow. Next he came to something shrouded in fold after fold of tissue-paper.
"And here is the fairest lily of them all," he said, in his poetic
Italian fashion.
"What can it be, mother?" asked the little girl, wonderingly.
Mrs. Clayton smiled. "It is from Sartoris', the fine art store where you saw the beautiful pictures last week; that is all I know about it," she replied.
The man carefully placed the mysterious object on the table.
"It is some kind of a vase or an image," declared Larry.
"Why, so it is!" echoed Abby.
In another moment the tissue veil was torn aside, and there stood revealed a beautiful statue of the Blessed Virgin.