thing to eat." His father sometimes comes for him, when he chances to
be passing the schoolhouse,--pallid, unsteady on his legs, with a fierce
face, and his hair over his eyes, and his cap awry; and the poor boy
trembles all over when he catches sight of him in the street; but he
immediately runs to meet him, with a smile; and his father does not
appear to see him, but seems to be thinking of something else. Poor
Precossi! He mends his torn copy-books, borrows books to study his
lessons, fastens the fragments of his shirt together with pins; and it
is a pity to see him performing his gymnastics, with those huge shoes in
which he is fairly lost, in those trousers which drag on the ground, and
that jacket which is too long, and those huge sleeves turned back to the
very elbows. And he studies; he does his best; he would be one of the
first, if he were able to work at home in peace. This morning he came to
school with the marks of finger-nails on one cheek, and they all began
to say to him:--

"It is your father, and you cannot deny it this time; it was your father
who did that to you. Tell the head-master about it, and he will have him
called to account for it."

But he sprang up, all flushed, with a voice trembling with
indignation:--

"It's not true! it's not true! My father never beats me!"

But afterwards, during lesson time, his tears fell upon the bench, and
when any one looked at him, he tried to smile, in order that he might
not show it. Poor Precossi! To-morrow Derossi, Coretti, and Nelli are
coming to my house; I want to tell him to come also; and I want to have
him take luncheon with me: I want to treat him to books, and turn the
house upside down to amuse him, and to fill his pockets with fruit, for
the sake of seeing him contented for once, poor Precossi! who is so good
and so courageous.

A FINE VISIT.

Thursday, 12th.

This has been one of the finest Thursdays of the year for me. At two
o'clock, precisely, Derossi and Coretti came to the house, with Nelli,
the hunchback: Precossi was not permitted by his father to come. Derossi
and Coretti were still laughing at their encounter with Crossi, the son
of the vegetable-seller, in the street,--the boy with the useless arm
and the red hair,--who was carrying a huge cabbage for sale, and with
the soldo which he was to receive for the cabbage he was to go and buy a
pen. He was perfectly happy because his father had written from America
that they migh