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Updated: May 10, 2025
"But do not fancy," continued the Princess, laughing, "that you have had only this spy to encounter. Many others have watched your motions and your conversations, and all concur in saying you are the devil, and they could make nothing of you. But that, 'mia cara piccola diavolina', is just what we want!"
All the children looked surprised at this, and Rose said, rather gravely, "Dear Piccola, don't you know what Christmas is?" Oh, yes, Piccola knew it was the happy day when the baby Christ was born, and she had been to church on that day and heard the beautiful singing, and had seen the picture of the Babe lying in the manger, with cattle and sheep sleeping round about.
All the latent superstition that dwells in the contadino was stirred as dust by a wind. In clouds it flew up about his mind. Fear looked out of his great eyes. Dread was eloquent in his gestures. And he, too, referred to the child, to the povera piccola bambina. It would cast ill-luck on the child to bring her up in a chamber of death. Her saint would forsake her. She too would die.
It was on a dark sultry night after the evening meal had been finished, when the many guests of the Piccola Sentinella were sitting in the public rooms or on the terrace overlooking the hotel gardens.
Ah! come, Piccola, Piccolissima!" he cried to the little one, who was behind the shutter of a half-open window, absorbed in the contemplation of a gnat who was up the window, singing a little air through his nasal trumpet, "tell us, Piccola, a little of what the flies say to you."
Piccola, you cannot be so cruel to yourself: you are young." "But, dear Madre, just consider; we are invited because we are considered professional singers: your reputation as such is of course established, mine is not; but still I shall be asked to sing, as I was asked before; and you know Dr.
After this, Piccola was never lonely, for all day long the children ran and played and danced and sang in the garden. It was several weeks before they saw her at all, and I am not sure they ever would have done so but one day the kitten ran away, and in chasing her they came close to the wall and saw Piccola's black eyes looking through the hole in the stones.
Piccola worked hard all the day long, and sold the stockings which she knit, even when her own little bare feet were blue with the cold. As Christmas Day drew near she said to her mother, "I wonder what the good Saint Nicholas will bring me this year. I cannot hang my stocking in the fireplace, but I shall put my wooden shoe on the hearth for him. He will not forget me, I am sure."
Now Santa Claus would come, and perhaps be angry because he couldn't find any place to put the present. The poor little girl stood by the fireplace, and the big tears began to run down her cheeks. Just then her mother called to her, "Hurry, Piccola; come to bed." What should she do?
Little Piccola had no dolls and toys, and she was often hungry and cold, but she was never sad nor lonely. What if there were no children for her to play with! What if she did not have fine clothes and beautiful toys! In summer there were always the birds in the forest, and the flowers in the fields and meadows, the birds sang so sweetly, and the flowers were so bright and pretty!
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