“You haven’t been over the stairs, sissy, since Teddy brought you up last fall.”

“Teddy didn’t bring me up.  I never came up, ’cause I never was down,” said Cherry resolutely; and the boy, who dreaded above all things to awaken in her mind any recollection of the past, said no more, but carefully wrapping the shawl about her, and promising his mother not to stay too long, carried her gently down the stairs, and to the door Giovanni opened as he heard them approach.

“Welcome, little one!” said the Italian in his own language as they entered; and Cherry smiled at the sound, and then looked troubled and thoughtful.

The truth was, that ’Toinette’s father and mother had often spoken both Italian and French in her presence; and although the terrible fever had destroyed her memory of home and parents, and all that went before, the things that she had known in those forgotten days still awoke in her heart a vague sense of pain and loss,—­an effort to recall something that seemed just vanishing away, as through the strings of a broken and forsaken harp will sweep some vagrant breeze, wakening the ghosts of its forgotten melodies to a brief and shadowy life, again to pass and be forgotten.

So ’Toinette, still clinging to Teddy’s neck, turned, and fixed her great eyes upon the Italian’s dark face so earnestly and so piteously, that he smiled, showing all his white teeth, and asked,—­

“Does the little one know the language of my country?”

“No:  of course she don’t.  I don’t,” said Teddy, looking a little anxiously into Cherry’s face, and wondering in his own heart if she might not have known Italian in that former life, of whose loves and interests he had always been so jealous.

Giovanni looked curiously at the two children.  Cherry, in recovering from her illness, was regaining the wonderful beauty, that, for a time, had seemed lost.  The remnant of her golden hair spared by Mother Winch’s shears had fallen off after the first attack of fever, and was now replaced by thick, short curls of a sunny brown, clustering about her white forehead with a careless grace far more bewitching than the elaborate ringlets Susan had been so proud of manufacturing; while long confinement to the house had rendered the delicate complexion so pearly in its whiteness, so exquisite in its rose-tints, that one could hardly believe it possible that flesh and blood should become so etherealized even while gaining health and strength.

The subtle eye of the Italian marked every point of this exquisite loveliness, ran admiringly over the outlines of the graceful figure, the delicate hands and little feet, the classic curve of the lips, the thin nostrils and tiny ears; then returned to the clear, full eyes, with their pencilled brows and heavy lashes, and smiled at the earnestness of the gaze that met his own.  Then, from this lovely and patrician face, the Italian’s eyes wandered to Teddy’s coarse and unformed features, and figure of uncouth strength.