ys."

"It is a queer name," said Uncle Pelle. "The pastor said it meant the
ninth, as the Italians talk; and so when this little girl came, he said
Karin and Jan might as well call her Decima, which was like the tenth,
in Swedish. And they did. They about make a fool of her in the
family; and I ain't much better. That's Nono behind you."

A slight dark boy had been standing quietly watching the young stranger
while she skilfully handled her brushes. He now stepped forward, took
off the little straw hat of his own braiding, and bowed, without any
sheepish confusion.

"Here's Nono!" said Decima, placing herself beside him, as if she had a
special right to exhibit him to the stranger.

"And so you are Nono," said Alma. "I have always felt as if you
belonged in a way to me. Where did the people who live here find you?"

"They didn't find me at all; they took me, and have brought me up as if
I was their own child," said Nono, his eyes sparkling.

The story of the Italians and the bear was told by Nono, as usual, and
the scene most vividly described by word and gesture. Decima did not
pretend that she knew more than he did on this subject, and indeed he
was quite her oracle in all matters. She thought Nono a pink of
perfection; and well she might, for he had been her playmate and
guardian ever since she could remember. It was confidently affirmed in
the family that Nono could, from the first, make her laugh and show her
dimples as she would not for any one else. Nono had soon learned that
he could be a help to Karin with the baby, and was always more willing
than were her rough brothers to be tied to the child's little
apron-string.

Nono had hardly finished his story when the young lady took out the
smallest watch imaginable and looked hastily at it. She gathered up
her painting apparatus in a great hurry, and was off with a hasty
good-bye, saying her father would be expecting her home to dinner, but
she would see them again soon and finish her picture. She had almost
forgotten in her hurry the money she had promised, but she suddenly
remembered that part of the transaction, and left in the old man's
hand, as he said, "more than enough to pay for a whole day's work, just
for standing still, that little bit, to be painted."

Alma was soon out of sight of Pelle and Decima, who followed her with
their wondering eyes as she sped along the road towards her pleasant
home. The one thing about which her father