difficulty, and we knew that he had still relations there. One day, as
we were engaged with our lesson at his lodgings, he took some leaves and
a faded flower or two that had just arrived in a letter from Italy, and
said, with tears in his eyes, "These have come from my father's place."
Now it so happened that the eldest boy in our class was liable to fits
of perfectly uncontrollable laughter (what the French call _le fou
rire_), and, as the reader is sure to know, if he has ever been troubled
with that disease himself, the fit very often comes on just at the
moment when the patient feels that he is called upon to look
particularly grave. This is what happened in the present case. Our
unlucky fellow-pupil was tickled with something in Testa's accent or
manner, or perhaps as he was an English boy the foreigner's tenderness
of feeling may have seemed to him absurd; but whatever may have been the
reason, his face became convulsed with suppressed laughter, which burst
forth at last uncontrollably. This made the rest of us laugh too--not at
poor Testa, but at our unworthy comrade. I shall never forget the
Italian gentleman's look on that occasion. His eyes were still brimming
with tears, but he laid down the flattened leaves and flowers and looked
at us all round with an expression that cut me, at least, to the quick.
"_Young gentlemen_," he said, "_I did not expect you to be so unkind_."
I longed to explain, but did not find words at the moment, and we went
on with our lesson. The fact was that Testa had not the least sense of
humor in his composition, and so he could not understand what had
happened. A humorous man, acquainted with the nature of boys, would have
understood the attack of _fou rire_, and forgiven it; but then a
humorous man would have thought twice before appealing to a set of
English boys for sympathy with the feelings of an exile. The incident
certainly increased my feelings of respect for Signor Testa, and made me
try to please him. The French lessons were very agreeable to me, and
besides duly preparing them, I read some French on my own account, and