Then, indeed, began happy days for Filippo. No
more threadbare coats, but a warm little brown
serge robe, tied round the waist with a rope whose
ends grew daily shorter as the way round his waist
grew longer. No more lupin skins and whiffs of
fried polenta, but food enough and to spare; such
food as he had not dreamt of before, and always as
much as he could eat.

Filippo was as happy as the day was long. He
had always been a merry little soul even when life
had been hard and food scarce, and now he would
not have changed his lot with the saints in Paradise.

But the good brothers began to think it was time
Filippo should do something besides play and
eat.

`Let us see what the child is fit for,' they said.

So Filippo was called in to sit on the bench with
the boys and learn his A B C. That was dreadfully
dull work. He could never remember the names of
those queer signs. Their shapes he knew quite
well, and he could draw them carefully in his copy-
book, but their names were too much for him. And
as to the Latin which the good monks tried to
teach him, they might as well have tried to teach a
monkey.