in, like all foreigners who have grown up in Rome and have learned
to speak from their servants, he anticipated little difficulty. He
felt quite sure of being able to interpret the hard places, and he had
learned from me to know the best and finest passages in a number of
authors.

But imagine the feelings of a boy of twenty, perfectly in love,
without having the smallest right to be, suddenly placed by the side
of the object of his adoration, and told to teach her all he
knows--with her father in the next room and the door open between! I
have always thought it was a proof of Nino's determined character,
that he should have got over this first lesson without accident.

Hedwig von Lira, the contessina, as we always call her, is just Nino's
age, but she seemed much younger, as the children of the North always
do. I have told you what she was like to look at, and you will not
wonder that I called her a statue. She looked as cold as a statue,
just as I said, and so I should hardly describe her as beautiful. But
then I am not a sculptor, nor do I know anything about those arts,
though I can tell a good work when I see it. I do not wish to appear
prejudiced, and so I will not say anything more about it. I like life
in living things, and sculptors may, if it please them, adore straight
noses, and level brows, and mouths that no one could possibly eat
with. I do not care in the least, and if you say that I once thought
differently, I answer that I do not wish to change your opinion, but
that I will change my own as often as I please. Moreover, if you say
that the contessina did not act like a statue in the sequel, I will
argue that if you put marble in the fire it will take longer to heat
and longer to cool than clay; only clay is made to be put into the
fire, and marble is not. Is not that a cunning answer?

The contessina is a foreigner in every way, although she was born
under our sun. They have all sorts of talents, these people, but so
little ingenuity in using them that they never accomplish anything. It
seems to amuse them to learn to do a great many things, although they
must know from the beginning that they can never excel in any one of
them. I dare say the contessina plays on the piano very creditably,
for even Nino says she plays well; but is it of any use to her?

Nino very soon found out that she meant to read literature very
seriously, and, what is more, she meant to read it in her own way. She
was as differ