d in
close converse upon the landing with a stranger of the male sex, asked
the said stranger in. Her invitation being accepted, the trio adjourned
to the sitting-room, the gallant knight still retaining his trophy.

Only after being warmly pressed to do so by Signora Pace did the
all-unexpected and unknown visitor deposit Saint Antonio upon the centre
table, and take his seat upon the red rep sofa next to her.

Guiseppina sat facing him. She seemed suddenly to have quite
changed--never once snubbed her mother, and appeared throughout all
sugar and sweetness.

We can suppose that remorse at having treated her Saint after this
fashion, and relief at his not having fallen into the hands of a
policeman, as she at first had most reasonably feared, had worked the
change.

Policeman, indeed! Signor Cesare Garelli--such the visitor gave as his
name--appeared to her to be quite a charming person. To be sure, he was
bald, but that mattered little. So was Julius Caesar and a host of other
great men.

Cesare Garelli was something, to her, infinitely more interesting than
his great namesake ever had been. He was a partner of the well-known
Zucco, and the office they kept in Via Carlo Alberto had wooden cups of
gold nuggets, no end of glittering coins and crisp bank-notes of foreign
and formidable appearance, in its solitary window. More than once she
had longingly halted before its treasures.

So a vast deal of information was exchanged on both sides, and when
Signor Cesare Garelli rose to go, the flood of golden sunshine had crept
quite across to the other side of the street.

Apparently some of it had crept into Guiseppina's heart also, for she
refrained from flying out when the long-delayed "minestra" turned out to
be smoked, and she even went so far as to give Saint Antonio a chaste
kiss as she restored him to the crooked nail to which he had hung for so
long a time.

Cesare Garelli's visits became more and more frequent in Via Santa
Teresa. Then followed excursions to Rivoli, to Superza, to Moncalieri.
Nice little dinners, and evenings spent at the Caffe San Carlo or under
the horse-chestnuts in the Valentino garden, succeeded rapidly. La
Signora Pace's life savoured of the seventh heaven, and Guiseppina's
temper grew mellow as the peaches which her admirer was for ever sending
her.

That phase passed away, and then one fine day Cesare Garelli burst forth
in all the glory and radiance of a declared and accepted lov