‘Yes. I have one brother, and scarcely another relation in the world. His daughter, my niece Rhoda, almost lives with me. My brother is a man whom no one can despise or pooh-pooh. He is a very lucky man. He holds extreme opinions (so called) on many questions, social and religious and others, and yet he is accepted and respected as if he were the most orthodox of the orthodox. You know, I am a much more commonplace, conservative person than he is in reality, and yet I have the credit of being reckless, impulsive and defiant of all the conventionalities, while Mr. Hamilton, who despises conventionalities in a practical way which I dare not attempt, is a tame cat in the most rigorously respectable houses. Thus it is sometimes.’ ‘Yes, I know. What did he do, then--Mr. Hamilton--to make things straight?’ ‘My dear Fulvia, I cannot admit that they needed making straight. But if they did, this is how it was managed. Very soon after my return home with Signor Oriole, Richard came to stay with me, bringing Rhoda with him. He paid me a long visit. He was seen everywhere with Signor Oriole. They got on splendidly. We were all together constantly. My niece and your--and Signor Oriole are devoted to each other. His ways with children and young people are fascinating--there are no fathers so charming to their children as the Italian fathers. You have only to see them together to know that at once. Then we all went away together, and stayed a good while at my brother’s place--in fact, we live alternately at each other’s houses. I returned, with Rhoda and Signor Oriole. He has taught her Latin and Italian. There was really nothing to be said. I do not know a single friend of mine who really knows him and dislikes him.’ ‘No,’ said Fulvia, in a low voice and with downcast eyes. ‘To know him is to love him. If Beppo had had the destiny suited to him he would have been the adored father of the happiest family of children the world ever knew. I know it.’ She said no more about it, but something in her face told Minna that she felt all this more deeply than, perhaps, she would have admitted.