“Truly will she; but remember always, picciola, that she nor Teddy must know any thing of this, or they will prevent it all.  You won’t tell them?”

“No; I won’t tell,” said Cherry, shuttling her lips very tight, and shaking her head a great many times.  “Only we must go very quick, or else I might forget; and, when I opened my mouth, it might jump out before I knew.”

“We will go to-morrow if it is fine,” said Giovanni, after a moment of consideration; and Cherry, after changing her clothes, returned home so full of mystery and importance, that unless Mrs. Ginniss had been more than usually busy, and Teddy obliged to hurry with his supper and go directly out again, one or the other must have suspected that something very mysterious was working in the mind of their little pet.

CHAPTER XVI.

Beginning A new life.

As if to favor Giovanni’s plot, it chanced, that, in the morning of the next day, Mrs. Ginniss received a sudden summons to the bedside of Ann Dolan, the friend whose advice had led to Teddy’s being placed in his present situation.

The messenger had reported that Ann was “very bad wid her heart, an’ the life was knocked out intirely, sure:”  and Mrs. Ginniss felt herself bound to hasten to the help of her friend, should she still be alive; or to see that she was “waked dacent” if dead.  Just as she was wondering if it was best to take Cherry with her, or to leave her locked up alone until her return, Giovanni appeared at the door, his face disposed in its most winning smile, and his manner as respectful as if he had been addressing the march‚sa who had been his own and his daughter’s patron.

“Will my good neighbor allow that the little girl go for a walk with me this fine morning?” asked he.  “I would like to show her the flowers and the swans in the gardens of the city.”

“An’ will you take the monkey an’ the grind-orgin the day?” asked Mrs. Ginniss doubtfully.

“Indeed, no!  I go to a walk to enjoy the fine time, and to see the flowers and the swans,” explained Giovanni in his best English, and with a proportion of bows and smiles; while Cherry stood by, her little face full of surprise and mystery, not unmingled with a little shame as she felt that her good mammy was being deceived and misled by the wily Italian.

“Faith, thin, Mr. Jovarny, it’s very perlite ye are iver an’ always; but I don’t jist feel aisy wid the child out uv my sight.  Mabbe she’d better wait till night, when Teddy can take her out.”

“Oh, let me go, mammy!  I want to go with ’Varny, and I’ll bring you”—­

“Yes; we’ll get the pretty flowers to bring to mammy, she would say,” interrupted the Italian hastily; and Mrs. Ginniss, looking down at the little anxious face and pleading eyes, found her better judgment suddenly converted into a desire to please her little darling at any rate, and to see her smile again in her own sunny fashion.