earrings in her ears, and the red and yellow cotton kerchief on her head
was as good as new. Nobody would believe that she was hungry.

Meanwhile Marcello was made comfortable in one of the narrow white beds
of an airy ward in the San Giovanni hospital. The institution is
intended for women only, but there is now a ward for male patients, who
are admitted when too ill to be taken farther. The doctor on duty had
written him down as much reduced by malarious fever and wandering in his
mind, but added that he might live and get well. It was wonderful, the
doctor reflected for the thousandth time in his short experience, that
humanity should bear so much as it daily did.

The visiting physician, who was a man of learning and reputation, came
three hours later and examined Marcello with interest. The boy had not
suffered much by sleeping on the tail of the cart in the warm summer's
night, and was now greatly refreshed by the cleanliness and comparative
luxury of his new surroundings. He had no fever now and had slept
quietly for two hours, but when he tried to remember what had happened
to him, where he had been, and how he had come to the place where he
was, it all grew vague and intricate by turns, and his memories faded
away like the dreams we try to recall when we can only just recollect
that we have had a dream of some sort. He knew that he was called
Marcello, but the rest was gone; he knew that a beautiful creature had
taken care of him, and that her name was Regina. How long? How many days
and nights had he lain in the attic, hot by day and cold at night? He
could not guess, and it tired him to try.

The doctor asked two or three questions while he examined him, and then
stood quite still for a few seconds, watching him intently. The two
young house surgeons who accompanied the great man kept a respectful