“Bravo, bravo, picciola!  Truly you were born to dance!”

But the child, suddenly losing the life and color that had sparkled through every line of face and figure, ran with a wild cry to Teddy, and, clasping him tight round the neck, burst into a flood of tears, crying,—­

“Take me home, Teddy!-quick, quick!  I want mamma!”

Mrs. Ginniss had taught her to say “mammy;” and Teddy remembered with dismay that she had never used the name “mamma,” except in the delirium of her fever, when she was evidently addressing some distant and beloved object.  But still he chose to understand the appeal in his own way; and, hastily wrapping the shawls about the little figure, he raised it in his arms, saying soothingly,—­

“Come, then; come to mammy, little sister.  You didn’t ought to have danced and get all tired.”

“Good-by, little one,” said Giovanni somewhat ruefully.  The child raised her head from Teddy’s shoulder, and, smiling through her tears, said sweetly,—­

“Good-by, ’Varny.  It wasn’t you made me cry, but because”—­

“’Cause you was tired, little sister,” interposed Teddy hastily; and Giovanni looked at him craftily.

“I’ll come and see you another day, ’Varny; but I must go lie down now,” continued Cherry, anxious to remove any wound her new friend’s feelings might have received.  And the organ-grinder smiled until he showed all his white teeth, as he replied,—­“Yes, and again and again,—­as often as you will, picciola.”

But Teddy, shaking his head disapprovingly, muttered, as he carried his little sister away,—­

“No:  it isn’t good for you, sissy, to get so tired and worried.”

CHAPTER XV.

The pink-silk dress.

But, spite of Teddy’s disapproval and his mother’s doubts, neither of them could resist the earnestness of Cherry’s entreaties, day after day, to be allowed to “go down and see the music in ’Varny’s room;” and it finally became quite a regular thing for Teddy, upon his return home, to find his little sister ready shawled and hooded, and waiting for him to accompany her.

As the summer came on, and whole streets-full of his patrons left the city, Giovanni became less regular in his hours of leavings or returning home; often remaining in his room several hours of the day, smoking, sleeping, or training Pantalon in new accomplishments.

So sure as she knew him to be at home, Cherry gave her foster-mother no peace until she had consented to allow her to visit him; and Mrs. Ginniss said to herself, “Sure, and it’s no harm the little crather can git uv man nor monkey nor music; an’ what’s the good uv crossin’ her?”

So it finally came about that Cherry spent many more hours in the company of Giovanni, Pantalon, and the organ, than Teddy either knew, or would have liked, had his mother thought fit to tell him.