From her dim corner she peeped forth timidly, scarcely daring to raise her eyes lest the vision of the radiant Madonna should burst upon her view all too suddenly.  But when at last she really gazed aloft to the point from which the tremulous voice sprung, no glorified figure met her view.  She still heard the melting, thrilling tones, but, alas! the blessed singer—­the Santa Maria—­was invisible.  All she could distinguish in the half-gloom of the place was the form of a man seated in the lofty gallery overhead.  He was sitting before some kind of instrument, and his fingers slipping over the keys were bringing forth the most wonderful sounds.  Ah, yes!  Nina knew what music one could make with one’s fingers.  Did not Telemacho play upon the harp?  Did not she herself accompany her own singing upon her fiddle,—­her darling fiddle, which she clasped lovingly beneath her arm and bravely tried to shield from the weather?  But surely, surely he could not be playing that voice!  Oh, no! it was the Santa Maria, and she was up in heaven out of sight.  It was only the sound of her singing that had come to earth.  Poor little Nina!  She was so often disappointed that it was not very hard to miss another joy.  She must comfort herself by finding a reason for it.  If there was a reason, it was not so hard.  Nina had to think of a great many reasons.  But nevertheless she could not control one little sigh of regret.  She would so much have liked to see the Santa Maria.  If she had seen her, she thought she would have asked her to give her a Christmas gift,—­something she could always keep, something that no one could take from her and that would never spoil nor break.  One had need of just such an indestructible possession if one lived in the “Italian Quarter.”  Things got sadly broken there.  And—­and—­there were so few, so very few gifts.  But it was warm and dim and sweet in here,—­a right good place in which to rest when one was tired.  She bent her head and leaned it against the wooden back of the seat, and her eyes wandered first to one interesting object and then to another,—­to the tall windows, each of which was a most beautiful picture, and all made of wonderfully colored glass; to the frescoed walls garlanded with green and at last to the organ-loft itself, in which was the solitary figure of the musician, seated before that strange, many-keyed instrument of his, practising his Christmas music.

He had lit the gas-jets at either side of the key-board, and they threw quite a light upon him as he played, and upon the huge organ-pipes above his head.  Nina thought she had never seen anything as beautiful as were their illuminated surfaces.  She did not know what they were, but that did not matter.  She thought they looked very much like exceedingly pointed slippers set upright upon their toes.  She fancied they were slippers belonging to the glorious angels who, Telemacho said, always came to earth at Christmas-tide to sing heavenly anthems for the Festa del Gesu Bambino, and to distribute blessings to those who were worthy.