or myself, I always liked the story of the night in which our
Blessed Redeemer came to his disciples walking on the water. And then of
the older stories I liked the one of poor Joseph and his brethren. What
bad devils the brothers were! But God brought good out of evil, and
rewarded poor Joseph, who was an angel, by making him a great king.
Well, still I am babbling on and telling you about our school, and
forgetting La Mamma. I told you she had a franc a day. Our rent cost a
hundred francs a year. That was a little more than twenty-five centimes
a day, and that left La Mamma about seventy centimes a day for food, and
clothing, and lights, and so on. La Mamma worked day and night. Whenever
she could, she used to sit up at night with sick people, for that was
paid well,--a franc a night; sometimes in grand houses as much as two
francs,--and then she could rest in the day-time when we were at school.
But, whatever she did, or wherever she went, she always managed to be at
the convent gate every evening at half-past five to bring us home. If by
any chance she could not do that, Marc Antonio always waited for us and
brought us home very carefully. He was a good, steady boy, and never
stopped to play when we were with him, and always shut himself in with
us at home and did his best to take care of us until La Mamma came back.
God forgive me! but I used to think La Mamma very hard in those days.
She would never let us go the length of a yard alone; and once when she
caught me running out on the stairs to play hide-and-seek with some
girls and boys who lived on the floor below us, she gave me such a slap
that my ears rang again. Well, to tell truth, we had so much playing in
the convent garden, and such a long walk home in the evening, that we
were generally rather tired and glad to get quickly to bed as mamma bade
us. She, _poverina!_ always sat up, patching and darning, long after we
were in bed, so that we might go decently to school.

I remember well the first real dolls we ever had. It was at the Feast of
the Assumption, and there was a fair outside the Roman gate. Marc
Antonio was to be apprenticed the next day to a very decent _vetturino_,
and he had begged La Mamma to treat us all to some fried dumplings. We
were all day at the fair, though of course we bought nothing; but it was
a great pleasure to us to walk about and look at the booths full of gay
things. We were nearly ready to come home, when Teresina spied some
do