child and their love had followed as
naturally as summer follows spring. It had always been "Toni" and
"Nicoletta" ever since he could remember. But she was growing up, and
from a boy he had become a man. Yet how could he marry when he could
hardly earn enough to support his mother and himself? They talked it
over time and time again. If Vito would only return or good times come
it might be possible. But meantime there was nothing to do but wait.
Nicoletta blossomed into womanhood. Had she not been betrothed she would
have been called an old maid. Neither she nor Toni took any part in the
village merrymakings. Why should they? He was thirty and she
twenty-five. They might have married ten years ago had not the elder
brother gone away. Toni secretly feared that the time would never come
when they would be man and wife, but he patiently labored on earning his
two _lire_, or at most two _lire_ and a half, a day.

Then a man returned from America just for the harvest to see his family.
He said that Vito was alive. He had not seen him himself, but others had
seen him and he was rich. He told of the plentifulness of gold in
America, where every one was comfortable and could lay up a fortune. He
himself had saved over five thousand _lire_ in four years and owned a
one-third interest in a fruit store. He was going to take his brother's
family back with him--all of them. They would be rich, too, in a little
while. A man was a fool to stay in Italy. Why did not Toni come back
with him? He would get him a place on the railroad where one of his
friends was padrone.

Toni discussed it all with Nicoletta, and she talked with the man
herself.

"Toni," she said at length, "why do you not go? Here you are earning
nothing. There you could save in a month enough to keep your mother in
comfort for a year. You have to pay the nurse, and that takes a great
deal. While you are here it would cause talk if I came to live in your
home to care for your mother but if you go away I can do so without
comment and it will cost nothing. Perhaps you will find Vito. If not you
will soon make enough to send for both your mother and me."

"You are a good girl," he answered, kissing her, "but I could not shift
the responsibility of my mother to your shoulders. Still, I will talk to
Father Giuseppi about it."

The priest thought well of the plan (he was a little excited over
America himself), and agreed to break the matter to the mother.

She begged T