garden, thinking that Silvio would soon fall asleep. At last, however,
she did come in, and Rico took his departure at once; but she had a bad
time of it with Silvio, after all. He positively would not close his
eyes until his mother promised that Rico should go to fetch Stineli; but
she could not make any such promise, and the little fellow did not cease
insisting until his mother said, "Be quiet, now; the night will set
every thing straight." For she thought in the night he will forget his
notion, as had often been the case, and he will have some other fancy.

At last the child was quiet and slept; but his mother had miscalculated
the affair. Scarcely was it dawn when the little fellow called out from
his bed, "Is every thing set straight now, mother?"

As it was impossible for her to reply in the affirmative to this
question, the storm broke out again, and a more violent one than she had
ever experienced before with her little boy, and lasted through the
whole day quite late into the evening; and on the following day the same
thing recommenced.

Silvio had never been so persistent in any fancy before. When he
screamed and cried she was able to bear it; but when the hours of pain
and suffering came, and the child went on whining and complaining in the
most touching manner, saying,

"One only feels perfectly well with Stineli, and nowhere else," that cut
his mother to the heart, and seemed like a reproach to her, as if she
would not do something that might make him well again; but how could she
possibly even think of it?

She had heard herself Rico's answer to Silvio when he asked if he knew