"Aren't we? How do you know?" asked John. "Anyhow," he impressively
moralized, "we can try to be."

"No," said she, with conclusiveness, with fatalism. "It is no good
trying. Either you are noble or simple,--God makes you so,--you cannot
help it. If I were noble, I should be a contessina. If you were noble,
you would be a gransignore.

"And my unassuming appearance assures you that I'm not?" said he,
smiling.

"If you were a gransignore," she instructed him, "you would never be
such friends with me--you would be too proud."

John laughed.

"You judge people by the company they keep. Well, I will apply the same
principle of judgment to your gossip, Maria Dolores. By-the-by," he
broke off to inquire, "what is her Pagan name?"

"Her Pagan name? What is that?" asked Annunziata.

"Maria Dolores, I take it, is her Christian name, come by in Holy
Baptism," said John. "But I suppose she will have a Pagan name, come by
in the way of the flesh, to round it off with,--just as, for instance, a
certain flame of mine, whose image, when I die, they'll find engraved
upon my heart, has the Pagan name of Casalone."

Annunziata looked up, surprised. "Casalone? That is my name," she said.