“What if I were to answer grandmamma’s letter?”

In another moment Doretta is seated at her father’s desk, in his arm-chair, two cushions raising her to the requisite height, her legs dangling into space, the pen suspended in her hand, and her eyes fixed upon a sheet of ruled paper, containing thus far but two words:  Dear Grandmamma.

Signor Odoardo, leaning against the stove, watches his daughter with a smile.

It appears that at last Doretta has discovered a way of beginning her letter, for she re-plunges the pen into the inkstand, lowers her hand to the sheet of paper, wrinkles her forehead and sticks out her tongue.

After several minutes of assiduous toil she raises her head and asks: 

“What shall I say to grandmamma about her invitation to go and spend a few weeks with her?”

“Tell her that you can’t go now, but that she may expect you in the spring.”

“With you, papa?”

“With me, yes,” Signor Odoardo answers mechanically.

Yet if, in the meantime, he engages himself to Signora Evelina, this visit to his mother-in-law will become rather an awkward business.

“There—­I’ve finished!” Doretta cries with an air of triumph.

But the cry is succeeded by another, half of anguish, half of rage.

“What’s the matter now?”

“A blot!”

“Let me see?...You little goose, what have you done?...You’ve ruined the letter now!”

Doretta, having endeavored to remove the ink-spot by licking it, has torn the paper.

“Oh, dear, I shall have to copy it out now,” she says, in a mortified tone.

“You can copy it this evening.  Bring it here, and let me look at it...Not bad,—­not bad at all.  A few letters to be added, and a few to be taken out; but, on the whole, for a chit of your size, it’s fairly creditable.  Good girl!”

Doretta rests upon her laurels, playing with her doll Nini.  She dresses Nini in her best gown, and takes her to call on the cat, Melanio.

The cat, Melanio, who is dozing with half-open eyes, is somewhat bored by these attentions.  Raising himself on his four paws, he arches his flexible body, and then rolls himself up into a ball, turning his back upon his visitor.

“Dear me, Melanio is not very polite to-day,” says Doretta, escorting the doll back to the sofa.  “But you mustn’t be offended; he’s very seldom impolite.  I think it must be the weather; doesn’t the weather make you sleepy too, Nini? ...Come, let’s take a nap; go by-bye, baby, go by-bye.”

Nini sleeps.  Her head rests upon a cushion, her little rag and horse-hair body is wrapped in a woollen coverlet, her lids are closed; for Nini raises or lowers her lids according to the position of her body.

Signor Odoardo looks at the clock and then glances out of the window.  It is two o’clock and the snow is still falling.

Doretta is struck by another idea.