“May I ask what you came to see?” inquired a visitor, who always tried to make this silent one talk.
She only half turned to answer.
“The Holy Father; the shrines and homes of the saints; all the holy, and all the beautiful, and all the famous places here; and the skies that are above them. And, again, the Holy Father. He is the Christian Prometheus, bound to the Vatican as to a rock, and we are a little chorus of American Oceanides who are come to bewail him, and who have no mind to go away for pleasure.”
“Brava!” said papa.
“And as for the ‘proper thing,’ ” said another member of the family, “we have bored ourselves to death all winter trying to do that.”
“Besides,” struck in Isabel, with a bright thought, “we want to learn the language; and that we never could do going about from place to place. Here we can sit down quietly, and study the four or five hundred irregular verbs at our leisure, and settle the genders of things, and learn to pronounce properly all their undulating and circuitous strings of vowels and the little curly tails to their ridiculous words.”
“Don't include me in your class, if you please,” Mr. Varney said. “I would as soon shave off my hair and wear a wig as drop my own language and speak another. I shall speak English when I say anything; and if people do not understand me, it will not be my fault. We can always find interpreters; and I do not approve of—of—er—of deserting your own tongue for another,” he concluded rather weakly, not having measured his strength before commencing this speech.
The truth was that he never did approve of anything which cost him the least effort; but we listened as gravely as if we believed him to be actuated by the most heroic patriotism.
“You are quite right, papa,” Isabel said emphatically. “Still, since interpreters may not always be honest, you know, it is better that some of us should understand and be able to protect the family.”
“You will not find the verbs so difficult as you may imagine,” remarked an Italian. “The irregularities are chiefly in the preterite. Preterites are always ragged. They are never a part of the original language, I think, but were interpolated when it was discovered that a nicer expression of thought was needed; and then the grammarians had to accommodate themselves to circumstances, and use what was left. You will take pleasure in learning so musical a language, Miss Isabel.”