“‘My daughter,’ he would stammer as he endeavoured to impart to her the mysteries of the catechism, ‘you know that there is hell-fire for the wicked?’
“‘You say so, Father,’ she would answer him.
“‘But I wish you to believe that there is.’
“‘I will try, Father.’
“‘You must try always,’ he repeated, ‘try to think of the good God above you and of the burning fire below—the fire which is, which is, my child——’
“But the priest was ill-equipped when he came to the larger use of Italian adjectives, and he would turn in despair to question her upon that past concerning which she had as yet remembered so little.
“‘You have a home, my child?’
“‘Si, si,’ she answered him.
“‘Your father lives there?’
“‘I have no father but Father Andrea.’