“It’s but a weakling,” said Mae, with a shake of her head, “and I’ve hardly heard its whimpers at all, but--O, Mr. Mann, if you could have seen Talila--she’s dreadful.” “Who is Talila? and what has she to do with your soul?” “O, she’s one of those Sorrento people,” replied Mae, as if she had lived there for years. “I have so much to tell you: it will take--” “Years, I hope, dear.” The last word dropped without his noticing it, but Mae caught it and hid it in her heart. “What made you think of coming for me?” she asked, after a pause, during which Norman had hummed a song as she had been writing her name on the sand. They were quite on the shore and only a narrow stretch of beach separated them from the bay. “You said if you ever came away, you would go to Sorrento, and I knew you had a friend in the kitchen who lived near Naples. So I searched for her and the padrona, and, finding neither of them, set Giovanni a babbling, and learned that the woman Lisetta had left that morning for Sorrento. I told the boys I had a mere suspicion that I would trace for them. So off I came last night, and by stopping and enquiring at every settlement, at last discovered you.” “This is my birth-day; I am twenty years old,” said Mae, “Why, what are you doing?” For Norman had bent down to the sand also, and had drawn a queer little figure there. “That is you when you were one year old,” he laughed, “and you could only crow and kick your small feet, and smile now and then, and cry the rest of the time.” “That is about all I can do yet,” said Mae. “Here comes number two,” and he drew his hand across the sand and smoothed the baby image away, leaving in its place a round, sturdy little creature, poised dangerously on one foot. “You have walked alone, and you have called your father’s name, and you’re a wonderful child by this time.” “This is the three-year-old, white aprons and curls, please observe. Now, you recite ‘Dickery, dickery dock’ and ‘I want to be an angel,’ and you have cut all your wisdom teeth.” “O, Mr. Mann, I haven’t cut them yet. Babies don’t have them.” “Don’t they? Well, you have other teeth in their place, white and sharp--but by this time you are four years old.” “Ah, here I begin to remember. You draw the pictures, and I’ll describe myself. Four years old!--let me see--I had a sled for Christmas, and I used to eat green apples. That’s all I can remember; and five and six years old were just the same.” “O, no, I’m sure you went to church for the first time somewhere along there; and isn’t that a noteworthy event? I suppose all your thoughts were of your button boots and your new parasol?” “I behaved beautifully, I know; mamma says so; sat up like a lady, while you were sleeping, on that very same Sunday, off in some little country church, I suppose.” “I shouldn’t wonder--sleeping in my brother’s outgrown coat into the bargain, with the sleeves dangling over my little brown hands.”