"I?" said Calabressa. "Oh yes, I was a friend of hers for many years. I taught her Italian; she corrected my Magyar. Once her horse ran way; I was walking, and saw her coming; there was a wagon and oxen, and I shouted to the man; he drew the oxen right across the road, and barred the way. Ah, how angry she used to be—she pretended to
be—when they told her I had saved her life! She was a bold rider."
Presently Calabressa said, with a lighter air,
"Come, let us talk of something else—of you, par exemple. How do you like the English? You have many sweethearts among them, of course."
"No, signore, I have no sweethearts," said Natalie, without any trace of embarrassment.
"What! Is is possible? When I saw your father in Venice, and he told me the little Natalushka had grown to be a woman. I said to him, 'Then she will marry an Englishman.'"
"And what did he say?" the girl asked, with a startled look on her face.
"Oh, little, very little. If there was no possibility, why should he say much?"
"I have no sweethearts," said Natalie, simply; "but I have a friend—who wishes to be more than a friend. And it is now, when I have to answer him, it is now that I know what a sad thing it is to have no mother."
The pathetic vibration that Brand had noticed was in her voice; her eyes were downcast, her hands clasped. For a second or two Calabressa was silent.