At last the donkey came to a standstill in front of a tall building. It was seven stories high and was all of marble.
"You knew when to stop, little beastie," said his master. "You never make mistakes of that kind, if you do like to nibble the grass at the wrong time. Get down, Tessa, this is where Mr. Gray lives.
"The artist has his studio far up at the top of the building. You are to go there this morning, but his family live on the fourth piano. Good-bye, little ones. Be good children." The father kissed them lovingly and went away with Pietro to sell his fruit.
Piano, as applied to a building, means floor in Italian. It is very common in Italy to find very different kinds of people living on the several floors, or pianos, of one building. In this old palace, which Tessa and Beppo entered for the first time, very poor and dirty families were huddled together on the first floor with their dogs and other pets. Yes, even the horse of one of the families shared their home in this fine building.
But overhead, on the second floor, there lived a prince, a real live prince, with a dozen servants to wait on him. It did not trouble him that poor and dirty people were below him, because the walls were high and thick, and the floors were of marble. He did not seem to know even that there were such people in the world.
Beppo and Tessa climbed twenty-seven marble steps before they came to the second piano; and still they must keep going up, up, up, until they reached the very top.
"Stop, stop," Tessa had to say more than once. "I am quite out of breath, and then, too, I am scared just a little bit. Beppo, do I look all right? Do you think the artist will take me?"
Then Beppo would put his arm around his sister and comfort her with loving words. But at last the studio was reached, and the children, flushed and excited, knocked at the door.
"My father came with us to the city to-day. He said you wished to see us," Beppo grew bold enough to say when a pleasant-faced gentleman opened the door. "He will call for us again to-night."
"Come in, little ones," the gentleman answered in Italian. "I am glad you are here. This is Beppo, I believe. I have seen you before. And here is the little sister. How do you do, my child? Make yourselves quite at home in these easy chairs."