“Does the Signorina wish it?” asked Colin, with wondering looks, for the idea of another protector for Alice confounded him, he scarcely knew why. “The Signorina is not much more than a child,” said Sora Antonia, loftily. “Besides, she has not been brought up like an Italian young lady, to know what is proper. Poverina! she does not understand anything about it; but the Signori will excuse me--I know my duty, and that is enough.” “Oh yes, certainly,” said Colin; “but then, in England, as you say, we have different ideas; and if the Signorina does not wish----” Here, however, he was interrupted by Lauderdale, who, having tardily apprehended the purport of Sora Antonia’s communication, took it upon himself to make instant response in the best Italian he could muster. “_Avete molto buono, molto buono!_” cried Lauderdale, intending to say that she was very kind, and that he highly approved, though a chronic confusion in his mind, as to which was which of the auxiliary verbs, made his meaning cloudy. “_Grazie, Abbiamo contento! Grazie_,” he added, with a little excitement and enthusiasm. Though he had used the wrong verb, Sora Antonia graciously comprehended his meaning. She was used to such little eccentricities of diction on the part of the Forestieri. She bowed her stately head to him with a look of approbation; and it would be vain to deny that the sense of having thus expressed himself clearly and eloquently in a foreign language conveyed a certain satisfaction to the mind of the philosopher.