"Hist, Maso! Take this in to your lady mother," said Giulio. "I made it myself, so it's good." Giulio, one of the dining-room waiters at Casa Corti, was devoted to the Roscoes. Though he was master of a mysterious French polyglot, he used at present his own tongue, for Maso spoke Italian as readily as he did, and in much the same fashion. Maso took the cup, and Giulio disappeared. As the boy was carrying the broth carefully towards his mother's door, Madame Corti passed him. She paused. "Ah, Master Roscoe, I am relieved to learn that your mother is better. Will you tell her, with my compliments, that I advise her to go at once to the Bagni to make her recovery. She ought to go to-morrow. That is the air required for convalescence." Maso repeated this to his mother. "'That is the air required for convalescence,' she said." "And 'this is the room required for spring tourists,' she meant. Did she name a day--the angel?" "Well, she did say to-morrow," Maso admitted. "Old cat! She is dying to turn me out; she is so dreadfully afraid that the word fever will hurt her house. All the servants are sworn to call it rheumatism." "See here, mother, Giulio sent you this." "I don't want any of their messes." "But he made it himself, so it's good." He knelt down beside her sofa, holding up the cup coaxingly. "Beef-tea," said Mrs. Roscoe, drawing down her upper lip. But she took a little to please him. "Just a little more." She took more. "A little _teenty_ more." "You scamp! You think it's great fun to give directions, don't you?" Maso, who had put the emptied cup back on the table, gave a leap of glee because she had taken so much. "Don't walk on your hands," said his mother, in alarm, "It makes me too nervous." It was the 12th of April, and she had been ill two weeks. An attack of bronchitis had prostrated her suddenly, and the bronchitis had been followed by an intermittent fever, which left her weak. "I say, mother, let's go," said Maso. "It's so nice at the Bagni--all trees and everything. Miss Anderson'll come and pack." Miss Anderson was one of Dr. Prior's nurses. She had taken charge of Mrs. Roscoe during the worst days of her illness. "If we do go to the Bagni we cannot stay at the hotel," said Mrs. Roscoe, gloomily. "This year we shall have to find some cheaper place. I have been counting upon money from home that hasn't come." "But it _will_ come," said Maso, with confidence. "Have you much acquaintance with Reuben John?" The tone of voice, bitterly sarcastic, in which his mother had from his earliest remembrance pronounced this name, had made the syllables eminently disagreeable to Maso. He had no very clear idea as to the identity of Reuben John, save that he was some sort of a dreadful relative in America. "Well, the Bagni's nice," he answered, "no matter where we stay. And I know Miss Anderson'll come and pack."