Agnes was already hugging one of the toddlers, and trying to find a clean spot on his pretty face that she could kiss. “Aren’t they little darlings?” she said to Ruth. The older girl agreed with her, but she was having difficulty herself in forming the request she wished to make to the Italian. Finally she said: “Joe, you must let the city men take away your spoiled fruit every morning. You can pick it over yourself and save what you think your poor friends would like. Although, it is very bad to eat decayed fruit and vegetables. Bad for the health, you know.” “Si! Si!” exclaimed Joe, smiling right along. “I understand. It shall be as da litla Padrona command. Eh?” “And let me go down into the cellar, Joe. For your own sake—for your children’s health, you know—you must keep everything clean.” The woman spoke quickly and with energy. Joe nodded a great deal. “Si! Si!” he said. “So the good-a doctor say wot come to see da bébé.” “Oh! have you a baby?” cried Agnes, clasping her hands. The woman smiled at the eager girl and offered her hand to lead Agnes down the broken steps. Ruth followed them. The cellar was damp because of the ice blocks covered with a horseblanket at one side. Beyond the first partition, in a darker room, there was an old bedstead with ugly looking comforters and pillows without cases. Right down in one corner was an old wooden cradle with the prettiest little black haired baby in the world sleeping in it! At least, so Agnes declared. Mrs. Maroni was delighted with the girls’ evident admiration for the baby. She could tell them by signs and broken words, too, that the baby was now better and the doctor had told her to take it out into the air and sunshine all day. She could trust some of the older children with it; Maria was big enough to help at the stand. _She_ had the housework to do. The Italian woman led the way to her other apartment—if such it could be called. The rear cellar had two little, high windows looking into a dim little yard. They had no right to the yard. That belonged to the tenants above, and Ruth could see very well that the yard would be the better for a thorough cleaning-up. “Perhaps Mr. Howbridge will say we have no right to interfere,” thought the oldest of the Corner House girls. “But I’m just going to tell him what I think of this place.” The cellar was not so dirty, only it was _messy_. The Italians’ possessions were of the cheapest quality, and they had scarcely a decent chair to sit on. Whether it was poverty or a lack of knowledge of better things, Ruth could not decide. The little Maria came close to her side and smiled at her. “You speak English all right, don’t you?” asked Ruth. “Oh, yes, Ma’am. I go to school,” said Maria. “Do you know the lady who has the store up stairs?” The little girl’s face clouded. “Yes, Ma’am. I guess she’s a nice German lady, but she is _so_ cross.”