llition of smoke from his
mouth.

"He is such a proud man! And I don't wonder at that: he has reason to be
proud."

Again Wilfrid lifted an eyelid, and there is no knowing but that ideas of
a connection with foreign Counts, Cardinals, and Princes passed hopefully
through him.

"Would you believe that he is really the own nephew of Andronizetti!"

"Deuce he is!" said Wilfrid, in a mist. "Which one?"

"The composer!"

Wilfrid emitted more smoke.

"Who composed--how I love him!--that lovely "la, la, la, la," and the
"te-de, ta-da, te-dio," that pleases you, out of "Il Maladetto." And I am
descended from him! Let me hope I shall not be unworthy of him. You will
never tell it till people think as much of me, or nearly. My father says
I shall never be so great, because I am half English. It's not my fault.
My mother was English. But I feel that I am much more Italian than
English. How I long for Italy--like a thing underground! My father did
something against the Austrians, when he was a young man. Would not I
have done it? I am sure I would--I don't know what. Whenever I think of
Italy, night or day, pant-pant goes my heart. The name of Italy is my
nightingale: I feel that somebody lives that I love, and is ill-treated
shamefully, crying out to me for help. My father had to run away to save
his life. He was fifteen days lying in the rice-fields to escape from the
soldiers--which makes me hate a white coat. There was my father; and at
night he used to steal out to one of the villages, where was a good, true
woman--so they are, most, in Italy! She gave him food; maize-bread and
wine, sometimes meat; sometimes a bottle of good wine. When my father
thinks of it he cries, if there is gin smelling near him. At last my
father had to stop there day and night. Then that good woman's daughter
came to him to keep him from starving; she risked being stripped naked
and beaten with rods, to keep my father from starving. When my father
speaks of Sandra now, it makes my mother--she does not like it. I am
named after her: Emilia Alessandra Belloni. 'Sandra' is short for it. She
did not know why I was christened that, and will never call me anything
but Emilia, though my father says Sandra, always. My father never speaks
of that dear Sandra herself, except when he is tipsy. Once I used to wish
him to be tipsy; for then I used to sit at my piano while he talked, and
I made all his words go into music. One night I did it so well, my fat