He was standing in the doorway of his cottage. At a motion from the
grandmother, he ran towards her.

"Here, Rico," she said, and handed him the violin. "The schoolmaster
sends this to you: it is yours."

The boy stood as if he were in a dream, but it was true. The grandmother
was really standing there, holding the fiddle out to him.

Trembling with pleasure and excitement, he took his present at last, put
it on his arm, and gazed at it in a silly sort of way, as if he thought
it might vanish presently, as quickly as it had come, if he did not keep
his eyes on it.

"You must be very careful of it," said the old woman, delivering her
message faithfully. She was much inclined to laugh, however; for it did
not seem to her that the warning was at all necessary. "And, Rico, think
about the teacher, and do not forget what he has done for you: he is
very ill."

The grandmother went into the house with these words; and the boy
hastened up into his own bedroom, where he was always alone.

There he sat and fiddled, and played on and on, and forgot all about
eating or drinking, or how the time sped on. At last, when it was almost
dark, he came to himself, and went down-stairs. The cousin came out from
the kitchen, saying, "You can have something to eat to-morrow morning.
You have behaved so to-day that you won't get any thing more."