When Pietro was refreshed by rest and food the colonel sat down beside him, and told him all about the happy life Nono had had at the cottage, and how he had made the snow statue of the princess, and was now far away in Italy, learning to be perhaps a great sculptor himself.
The tears rolled slowly down the old man's cheeks as he listened. "It is good to hear, Enricho," he murmured, addressing his companion; "but I am too late, as you see."
"Can't we keep him here, and take care of him? He is our Nono's father, of course, papa," said Alma, much moved.
Alma had truly received into the inner chamber of her heart the heavenly Guest, and she was eager to share all with his humbler brethren.
"Where shall we put him?" said the colonel thoughtfully.
"In the little room in the wing, where the painters slept last summer," answered Alma promptly. "I will see that it is all nice for him. He looks so sick and tired. I am sure Marie will do her best for him, she was so fond of Nono. And, dear papa, we can use my money for him. I have ever so much still left in my little cottage. Let me, please, papa!"
The colonel gazed lovingly at Alma as he said,—
"Now you look so like your dear mother. It is just what she would have said. Certainly we will keep him here."
Enricho was only too glad to leave Pietro in the pleasant quarters that were prepared for him before evening. When the weary old man lay down in his comfortable bed, with everything neat and clean about him, he felt as if he were in some strange, blissful dream. He was not to see his boy; but how lovingly they had spoken of him!
Karin cried like a child when she heard that Nono's poor father had appeared; the very man she had dreaded to think of, who might come at any time to carry off the boy who was as dear to her as her own children. How she wished she could speak the poor father's language, and tell him what Nono had been to her! Later, she did try to make him understand it all, not only by broken Swedish words and signs, but with Frans sometimes as a translator. Mr. Frans had been studying Italian with his father, and was glad himself to talk about Nono.