"But mammy and Teddy don't know Italian," said Cherry, beginning to
look a little troubled.

"'In Rome, do as the Romans do.' When you are again with the woman
and boy, speak as they speak: with me, speak as I speak."

Giovanni said this more decidedly than he had ever spoken before,
and Cherry looked quickly up at him.

"Is that the way you talk because you want to make believe you are
my father?" asked she.

A sudden smile shot across the Italian's face, lighting its dark
features like a gleam of sunshine sweeping across a pine-clad
mountain-land.

"Shame were it to me, dear little heart, if to be thy father were to
make thee less happy than thou hast been with those others," said he
softly in Italian, and using the form of address, which, in almost
every language but the English, marks a different and more tender
relation from that indicated by the more formal plural pronoun.

"You will be happy with me if we do not soon revisit these people we
leave behind?" asked he.

The child's eyes grew large and deep as she fixed them upon his
face, and presently asked,--

"Are you going with me to try to find heaven again?"