“Don’t apologize, I beg of you,” protested Uncle Peabody, gathering up his letters and making room for Emory to sit beside him. “I was just on the point of returning, anyway, and you have saved me the necessity of packing up. In fact, you are very welcome.”
“I judge your news is of an agreeable nature?”
Emory saw that Uncle Peabody was eager to be questioned.
“Things are advancing famously,” replied Mr. Cartwright, enthusiastically. “These letters are from America, and report the fullest success attending the experiments there with which I am so vitally concerned. But what are you carrying so carefully at arm’s-length?”
Uncle Peabody peered into the little wicker cage Emory was holding.
“Ah, a grillo!” he said. “Then to-day must be Ascension Day and the Festa dei Grilli. I had forgotten the date.”
“So that explains why they are selling these little cages with crickets inside of them all over the city. The old woman I bought this of told me it was a token of good luck, so I brought it to Helen.”
“She will be interested in it,” replied Uncle Peabody. “The little grillo brought luck once upon a time, if the legend be true, and it may do so again.”
“Is this Festa dei Grilli, as you call it, an annual festival?”
“Yes; and as firmly established as the Feast of the Dove on Easter eve. The story goes that an attempt was once made upon the life of Lorenzo de’ Medici in his own garden by the familiar means of a goblet of poisoned wine. As the would-be assassin handed the goblet to Lorenzo a cricket alighted on the surface of the wine and immediately expired. Thus, as in modern melodrama, the villain was foiled. Since then, a Florentine would harm a human being as soon as he would a grillo. Each year these cages are taken into the homes, and as long as the little crickets can be kept alive good luck attends the household.”