Nastasia is helping his uncle, and is going to have a better education than he has. All have melted into the life of the Italian colony in Boston with an ease and an adaptability that are truly remarkable, and now that they have learned enough English to understand what is said to them and to make some answer, they are beginning to enjoy life. The younger people suffered severely from the unaccustomed cold of the winter, but all have survived it, and I really think Concetta and Nastasia are the better for it. [Illustration: Stonington—The Barber-shop—The Squadrito House] When Giuseppe Rota and I left the Stonington pier, he was in a wretched state because he realized that he had kept me from carrying out my plans, but I reassured him, and when we reached home my wife and I took him out to the best restaurant to which we could presume to go in our poor attire, and gave him what he said was the best dinner he had ever eaten. The pleasure which the poor peasant lad took in all that he saw and heard about him is only partly expressed in a sentence from a letter which he sent back to the folks at home in Avellino and came, round about, back to me: “The signor and signora were to me as are my brothers and sisters; ... the place was a palace such as that of the duke; ... the American people are strange in not liking to be treated with the honorable respect that should come from common folks.” The next morning he shouldered his little blue striped bag, and we started for the Jersey City station of the Pennsylvania Railroad. On the way we encountered three men in a group, whom I knew with the intimacy of long association. None of the three recognized me, and passed with amused scrutiny. I called one of them by name, and he took to the gutter as if thinking he was about to be held up. Then came recognition, and I introduced Giuseppe. Suffice it to say that we missed the train we had intended to take. Being greatly pressed for time, I endeavored to persuade Giuseppe to go alone on the next train to Newark, and in the station even found a Newark man who kindly volunteered to pilot him to his uncle’s house; but once again he flung his arms about me, and, to quiet him, I bought another ticket and went along. As we got off the car in Newark and turned into the Italian district, the strains of bands fell on our ears, and soon we saw decorated arches spanning the streets, crowds of people in holiday dress thronging the way, and later a procession came by in which scores of little girls, marching in white, preceded a half-dozen strong men bearing a platform on which was a saint’s figure. The people were celebrating the feast day of the patron saint of Avellino, and the figure was covered with purses, medals, watches, etc., while heaped-up gifts lay at its feet.