“Yes, dear,” her father replies, “and the clock is striking eleven too.  Run and tell them to get breakfast ready.”

Doretta runs off obediently, but reappears in a moment.

“Daddy, daddy, what do you suppose has happened?  The dining-room stove won’t draw, and the room is all full of smoke!”

“Then let us breakfast here, child.”

This excellent suggestion is joy to the soul of Doretta, who hastens to carry the news to the kitchen, and then, in a series of journeys back and forth from the dining-room to the study, transports with her own hands the knives, forks, plates, tablecloth, and napkins, and, with the man-servant’s aid, lays them out upon one of her papa’s tables.  How merry she is!  How completely the cloud has vanished that darkened her brow a few hours earlier!  And how well she acquits herself of her household duties!

Signor Odoardo, watching her with a sense of satisfaction, cannot resist exclaiming:  “Bravo, Doretta!”

Doretta is undeniably the very image of her mother.  She too was just such an excellent housekeeper, a model of order, of neatness, of propriety.  And she was pretty, like Doretta, even though she did not possess the fair hair and captivating eyes of Signora Evelina.

The man-servant who brings in the breakfast is accompanied by a newcomer, the cat Melanio, who is always present at Doretta’s meals.  The cat Melanio is old; he has known Doretta ever since she was born, and he honors her with his protection.  Every morning he mews at her door, as though to inquire if she has slept well; every evening he keeps her company until it is time for her to go to bed.  Whenever she goes out he speeds her with a gentle purr; whenever he hears her come in he hurries to meet her and rubs himself against her legs.  In the morning, and at the midday meal, when she takes it at home, he sits beside her chair and silently waits for the scraps from her plate.  The cat Melanio, however, is not in the habit of visiting Signor Odoardo’s study, and shows a certain surprise at finding himself there.  Signor Odoardo, for his part, receives his new guest with some diffidence; but Doretta, intervening in Melanio’s favor, undertakes to answer for his good conduct.

It is long since Doretta has eaten with so much appetite.  When she has finished her breakfast, she clears the table as deftly and promptly as she had laid it, and in a few moments Signor Odoardo’s study has resumed its wonted appearance.  Only the cat Melanio remains, comfortably established by the stove, on the understanding that he is to be left there as long as he is not troublesome.

The continual coming and going has made the room grow colder.  The mercury has dropped perceptibly, and Doretta, to make it rise again, empties nearly the whole wood-basket into the stove.

How it snows, how it snows!  No longer in detached flakes, but as though an openwork white cloth were continuously unrolled before one’s eyes.  Signor Odoardo begins to think that it will be impossible for him to call on Signora Evelina.  True, it is only a step, but he would sink into the snow up to his knees.  After all, it is only twelve o’clock.  It may stop snowing later.  Doretta is struck by a luminous thought: