On the foot of the bed was seated a tiny child, apparently not three years old, her head covered by a linen cap, her feet clothed with leather boots, above which her little yellow legs showed thin and naked.  A frock, made of what had once been a gay flowered silk, was her only other garment.  Her large dark eyes shone from out her queer little face, like two precious stones in a grotesque image carved in old ivory.  She held an empty medicine-bottle in her hand, and was amusing herself with putting the cork in and drawing it out again, to hear how it would pop.

La Pazzini went up to the bed and said, ‘Ecco la nobilissima donna;’ but directly after screamed out, ‘Holy mother! he is dead!’

It was so.  The entreaty had not been sent in time for Sarti to carry out his project of asking the great English lady to take care of his Caterina.  That was the thought which haunted his feeble brain as soon as he began to fear that his illness would end in death.  She had wealth—­she was kind—­she would surely do something for the poor orphan.  And so, at last, he sent that scrap of paper which won the fulfilment of his prayer, though he did not live to utter it.  Lady Cheverel gave La Pazzini money that the last decencies might be paid to the dead man, and carried away Caterina, meaning to consult Sir Christopher as to what should be done with her.  Even Mrs. Sharp had been so smitten with pity by the scene she had witnessed when she was summoned up-stairs to fetch Caterina, as to shed a small tear, though she was not at all subject to that weakness; indeed, she abstained from it on principle, because, as she often said, it was known to be the worst thing in the world for the eyes.

On the way back to her hotel, Lady Cheverel turned over various projects in her mind regarding Caterina, but at last one gained the preference over all the rest.  Why should they not take the child to England, and bring her up there?  They had been married twelve years, yet Cheverel Manor was cheered by no children’s voices, and the old house would be all the better for a little of that music.  Besides, it would be a Christian work to train this little Papist into a good Protestant, and graft as much English fruit as possible on the Italian stem.

Sir Christopher listened to this plan with hearty acquiescence.  He loved children, and took at once to the little black-eyed monkey—­his name for Caterina all through her short life.  But neither he nor Lady Cheverel had any idea of adopting her as their daughter, and giving her their own rank in life.  They were much too English and aristocratic to think of anything so romantic.  No! the child would be brought up at Cheverel Manor as a protegee, to be ultimately useful, perhaps, in sorting worsteds, keeping accounts, reading aloud, and otherwise supplying the place of spectacles when her ladyship’s eyes should wax dim.