her brother Celestino, but was in full
health, and in spirits that would have been lively but for the constant
and harassing admonitions of her mother, who in every free and graceful
movement saw a tendency to levity that must be repressed. The poor child
was doomed to a perpetual entanglement of the lower limbs, owing to her
garments being made as long as those of a grown person. If, forgetting
decorum, she chanced to skip or jump, Signora Lucretia would exclaim,
"Va scompostaccia! sta piu composta" ("Go to, most discomposed one! be
more composed"), and seating her by her side would supply her with
needlework or knitting until my mother would intercede, assuring Signora
Lucretia that the child could never attain healthy womanhood unless
allowed the full play of her muscles and the expansion of her lungs by
singing and laughter.

"Ah, madama, you know not how I fear lest the natural gayety of her
disposition should cause the loss of her soul."

"Oh, my dear lady, such ideas are born of the troubles through which you
have passed, and not of your native good sense. God has implanted this
gayety in your child's heart to enable her to enter with zest into those
amusements so necessary to her development."

One day my mother (by permission) had a tuck taken up in Virginia's
dress, and, directing me to take her for a walk, she privately
commissioned me to purchase for her such attire as was suitable to a
child of her years. I began with her head, and secured the jauntiest
little hat with feathers that I could find, not without a misgiving that
it would ultimately be consigned to the flames. Amongst other articles
that I procured was a wax doll, at the sight of which Virginia screamed
with delight. It was her first doll. Even Signora Lucretia's face was
lit by a smile of undisguised admiration at the improvement in the
child's toilette, but it soon gave place to a sigh at her own "vanity of
spirit," and she held the little hat as Eve might have held the apple
offered to her by the serpent.

Signora Lucretia and her children spent some hours every morning before
breakfast in reciting litanies and other prayers, and on retiring to
rest the same forms were repeated. During the day, whenever the clock
struck the hour, the whole family, leaving whatever might be the
occupation of the moment, knelt on their chairs and made a short prayer
or meditation on the flight of time.

At the time of their arrival my cousin Oswald was st