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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.
And Doretta, without waiting for an answer, runs to fetch her books, her doll, and her work. The books are spread out on the desk, the doll is comfortably seated on the sofa, and the work is laid out upon a low stool. "Ah," she cries, with an air of importance, "what a mercy that there is no school to-day! I shall have time to go over my lesson. Oh, look how it snows!" It snows indeed.
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.
The first-class compartment in which Signor Odoardo and his daughter find themselves is bitterly cold, in spite of foot-warmers, but Doretta finds the temperature delicious, and, if she dared, would open the windows for the pleasure of looking out. "Are you happy, Doretta?" "Oh, SO happy!"
"With whom?" the child falters anxiously, her little heart beating a frantic tattoo as she awaits his answer. "With me, Doretta." "With YOU, daddy?" she exclaims, hardly daring to believe her ears. "Yes, with me; with your daddy." "Oh, daddy, DADDY!" she cries, her little arms about his neck, her kisses covering his face. "Oh, daddy, my own dear daddy! When shall we start?"
Ten years earlier, on a pleasanter day, but also in winter, Signor Odoardo had started on his wedding-journey. Opposite him had sat a young girl, who looked as much like Doretta as a woman can look like a child; a pretty, sedate young girl, oh, so sweetly, tenderly in love with Signor Odoardo. And as the train started he had asked her the same question: "Are you happy, Maria?"
And as to that, muses the average-adjuster, have I ever positively made up my mind to remain single, and if I have, who is to prevent my changing it? And so it comes to pass that when, after an absence of three months, Signor Odoardo returns home with Doretta, he receives notice of the approaching marriage of Signora Evelina Chiocci, widow Ramboldi, with Signor Archimede Fagiuolo.
It is at once the presentiment of a new danger and the renewal of a bygone sorrow. Doretta was barely six years old when her mother died, and yet her remembrance is indelibly impressed upon the child's mind. And now it seems as though her mother were dying again. "When you have finished crying, Doretta, you may come here," Signor Odoardo says.
"Oh, yes, now I remember: Maitre renard, par l'odeur alleche, Lui tint a peu pres ce langage: He! bonjour..." At this point Doretta, seeing that her father is not listening to her, breaks off her recitation. Signor Odoardo has, in fact, closed the book upon his forefinger, and is looking elsewhere. "Well, Doretta," he absently inquires, "why don't you go on?"
Doretta is struck by a luminous thought: "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.
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