iccabocca shed tears.

But so naturally amiable was she, that she hastened to curb her emotion,
and efface as well as she could the trace of a stepmother's grief. When
this was done, and a silent self-rebuking prayer murmured over, the good
woman descended the stairs with alacrity, and, summoning up her best
smiles, emerged on the terrace.

She was repaid; for scarcely had she come into the open air, when two
little arms were thrown round her, and the sweetest voice that ever came
from a child's lips, sighed out in broken English, "Good mamma, love me
a little."

"Love you? with my whole heart!" cried the stepmother, with all a
mother's honest passion. And she clasped the child to her breast.

"God bless you, my wife!" said Riccabocca, in a husky tone.

"Please take this too," added Jackeymo in Italian, as well as his sobs
would let him--and he broke off a great bough full of blossoms from his
favorite orange-tree, and thrust it into his mistress's hand. She had
not the slightest notion what he meant by it!

CHAPTER III.

Violante was indeed a bewitching child--a child to whom I defy Mrs.
Caudle herself (immortal Mrs. Caudle!) to have been a harsh stepmother.

Look at her now, as, released from those kindly arms, she stands, still
clinging with one hand to her new mamma, and holding out the other to
Riccabocca--with those large dark eyes swimming in happy tears. What a
lovely smile!--what an ingenuous candid brow! She looks delicate--she
evidently requires care--she wants the mother. And rare is the woman who
would not love her the better for that! Still, what an innocent
infantine bloom in those clear smooth cheeks!--and in that slight frame,
what exquisite natural grace!

"And this, I suppose, is your nurse, darling?' said Mrs. Riccabocca,
observing a dark foreign-looking woman, dressed very strangely--without
cap or bonnet, but a great silver arrow stuck in her hair, and a
filagree chain or necklace resting upon her kerchief.

"Ah, good Annetta," said Violante in Italian. "Papa, she says she is to
go back; but she is not to go back--is she?"

Riccabocca, who had scarcely before noticed the woman, started at that
question--exchanged a rapid glance with Jackeymo--and then, muttering
some inaudible excuse, approached the Nurse, and beckoning her to follow
him, went away into the grounds. He did not return for more than an
hour, nor did the woman then accompany him home. He said briefly to his
wife that th