ld, with every particular carefully preserved
among the many eye-witnesses.

"But I love him just as well as if he were my own," was Karin's
unfailing close to such conversations, with a caress for the little
Italian that sealed the truth of her assertion.

Nono loved his foster-mother with the grateful affection of his warm
southern nature. Yet the very name Italy had for him a magical charm,
and the sound of a hand-organ, or the sight of a dark-faced man with a
broad-brimmed hat, made him thrill with a half joy that his own kith
and kin were coming, and a half fear that he was to be taken away from
the pleasant cottage and all the love that surrounded him. Bears had a
perfect fascination for him, but all the specimens he saw were rough
and ragged. No bear, the family were all sure, had ever had such a
beautiful brown coat of fur as that Pionono that Sven had been so
anxious to kiss.

Nono's favourite text in the Bible was the one that expressed the
youthful David's reliance on God when he went out to meet the insolent
Goliath: "The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and
out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me from this Philistine."
The Philistine stood for any and all threatening dangers of soul and
body, and this passage cheered the little Italian through many a
childish trouble, and many an encounter with the big boys from the
village, who delighted to assail him in solitary places, and reproach
him with being an outlandish stranger, living on charity, and not as
much of a Swede as the ugly bear he was named after.

All the warmer seemed to Nono the sheltering affection of Karin,
contrasted with these frequent attacks from without. His gratitude
expressed itself in an enthusiastic devotion to Karin, and a delight in
doing her the slightest service.

"Nono sets a good example to the other boys," said Jan one day. "I
don't know, Karin, what he wouldn't be glad to do for you. Our own
little rascals get all they can out of 'mother,' and hardly take the
trouble to say 'Thank you.' As for thinking to help you, that always
falls on Nono."

"Our boys are much towards me as we are to our heavenly Father, I
think. We seem to take it for granted he will give us what We need,
and that's all there is of it. At least that's the way I am, Jan."

Karin liked to make an excuse for her children when she thought Jan was
a little hard upon them.

"I won't forget that, Karin, when I'm put out, a