glance at the table before she sat down. "All but hot bread;
_that_ you _can't_ have," and Don Ippolito was for the first
time in his life confronted by a breakfast of hot beef-steak, eggs and
toast, fried potatoes, and coffee with milk, with a choice of tea. He
subdued all signs of the wonder he must have felt, and beyond cutting
his meat into little bits before eating it, did nothing to betray his
strangeness to the feast.

The breakfast had passed off very pleasantly, with occasional lapses.
"We break down under the burden of so many languages," said Ferris. "It
is an _embarras de richesses_. Let us fix upon a common maccheronic.
May I trouble you for a poco piu di sugar dans mon cafe, Mrs. Vervain?
What do you think of the bellazza de ce weather magnifique, Don Ippolito?"

"How ridiculous!" said Mrs. Vervain in a tone of fond admiration aside
to Don Ippolito, who smiled, but shrank from contributing to the new
tongue.

"Very well, then," said the painter. "I shall stick to my native
Bergamask for the future; and Don Ippolito may translate for the
foreign ladies."

He ended by speaking English with everybody; Don Ippolito eked out his
speeches to Mrs. Vervain in that tongue with a little French; Florida,
conscious of Ferris's ironical observance, used an embarrassed but
defiant Italian with the priest.

"I'm so pleased!" said Mrs. Vervain, rising when Ferris said that he
must go, and Florida shook hands with both guests.