about that time, and how I sold Castel Serveti
and came to live here in Rome. Nino was brought to me here. One day in
the autumn a carrettiere from Serveti, who would sometimes stop at my
door and leave me a basket of grapes in the vintage, or a pitcher of
fresh oil in winter, because he never used to pay his house-rent when
I was his landlord--but he is a good fellow, Gigi--and so he tries to
make amends now; well, as I was saying, he came one day and gave me a
great basket of fine grapes, and he brought Nino with him, a little
boy of scarce six years--just to show him to me, he said.

He was an ugly little boy, with a hat of no particular shape and a
dirty face. He had great black eyes, with ink-saucers under them,
_calamai_, as we say, just as he has now. Only the eyes are bigger
now, and the circles deeper. But he is still sufficiently ugly. If it
were not for his figure, which is pretty good, he could never have
made a fortune with his voice. De Pretis says he could, but I do not
believe it.

Well, I made Gigi come in with Nino, and Mariuccia made them each a
great slice of toasted bread and spread it with oil, and gave Gigi a
glass of the Serveti wine, and little Nino had some with water. And
Mariuccia begged to have the child left with her till Gigi went back
the next day; for she is fond of children and comes from Serveti
herself. And that is how Nino came to live with us. That old woman has
no principles of economy, and she likes children.

"What does a little creature like that eat?" said she. "A bit of
bread, a little soup--macche! You will never notice it, I tell you.
And the poor thing has been living on charity. Just imagine whether
you are not quite as able to feed him as Gigi is!" So she persuaded
me. But at first I did it to please her, for I told her our proverb,
which says there can be nothing so untidy about a house as children
and chickens. He was such a dirty little boy, with only one shoe and a
battered hat, and he was always singing at the top of his voice, and
throwing things into the well in the cortile.

Mariuccia can read a little, though I never believed it until I found
her one day teaching Nino his letters out of the _Vite dei Santi_.
That was probably the first time that her reading was ever of any use
to her, and the last, for I think she knows the _Lives of the Saints_
by heart, and she will certainly not venture to read a new book at her
age. However, Nino very soon learned to kno