A Roman Singer Author:F. Marion Crawford Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Now I ought to tell you that many things in this story were only told me quite lately; for at first I would not help Nino at all, thinking it was... more » but a foolish fancy of his boy's heart and would soon pass. I have tried to gather and to order all the different incidents into one harmonious whole, so that you can follow the story; and you must not wonder that I can describe some things which I did not see, and that I know how some of the people felt; for Nino and I have talked over the whole matter very often, and the baroness came here and told me her share, though I wonder how she could talk so plainly of what must have given her so much pain. But it was very kind of her to come; and she sat over there in the old green arm-chair, by the glass case which has the artificial flowers under it, and the sugar lamb the padre curato gave Nino when he made his first communion at Easter. However, it is not time to speak of the baroness yet, but I cannot forget her. Nino was very amusing when he began to love the young countess, and the very first morning — the day after we had been to St. Peter's — he went out at half past six, though it was only just sunrise, for we were in October. I knew very well that he was going for his extra lesson with De Pretis, but I hadnothing to say about it, and I only recommended him to cover himself well, for the scirocco had passed and it was a bright morning, with a clear tramontana wind blowing fresh from the north. I can always tell when it is a tramontana wind, before I open my window, for Mariuccia makes such a clattering with the coffee-pot in the kitchen, and the goldfinch in the sitting-room sings very loud; which he never does if it is cloudy. Nino, then, went off to Maestro Ercole's house for his singing, and this is what happene...« less