“And we’re mighty glad to have you with us,” answered Patsy.  “It’s no end of fun getting a girl a whole new outfit, from top to toe; and, aside from that, we already love you as if you were our little sister.”

Beth and Louise equally endorsed this statement; and indeed the child was so sweet and pretty and so grateful for the least kindness bestowed upon her that it was a pleasure to assist and counsel her.

Tato looked even smaller in girls’ clothing than in boys’, and she improved so rapidly in her manners by constantly watching the nieces that it was hard to imagine she had until now been all unused to polite society.  Already they began to dread the day when her father would come to claim her, and the girls and Uncle John had conceived a clever plan to induce the Duke to let his daughter travel with them on the continent and then go for a brief visit to them in America.

“By that time,” declared Louise, “Tato’s education will be accomplished, and she will be as refined and ladylike as any girl of her age we know.  Blood will tell, they say, and the monk who taught her must have been an intelligent and careful man.”

“She knows more of history and languages than all the rest of us put together,” added Beth.

“And, having adopted her, we mustn’t do the thing by halves,” concluded Patsy; “so our darling little brigandess must tease her papa to let her stay with us as long as possible.”

Tato smiled and blushed with pleasure.  It was very delightful to know she had such enthusiastic friends.  But she was afraid the Duke would not like to spare her for so long a time as a visit to America would require.

“You leave him to me,” said Uncle John.  “I’ll argue the case clearly and logically, and after that he will have to cave in gracefully.”

Meantime the dainty gowns and pretty costumes were one by one finished and sent to the hotel, and the girls ransacked the rather inadequate shops of Syracuse for the smartest things in lingerie that could be procured.  As they were determined to “try everything on” and see how their protege looked in her finery, Tato was now obliged to dress for dinner and on every other possible occasion, and she not only astonished her friends by her loveliness but drew the eye of every stranger as surely as the magnet attracts the needle.

Even in Sicily, where the Greek type of beauty to-day exists more perfectly than in Helene, there were few to compare with Tato, and it was only natural that the Americans should be very proud of her.

Kenneth was sketching a bit of the quarry and the old monastery beyond it, with the blue sea glimmering in the distance.  Sometimes he would join the others in their morning trips to the catacombs, the cathedrals or the museum; but the afternoons he devoted to his picture, and the others came to the gardens with him and sat themselves down to sew or read beside his easel.