Part 27 (1/2)

Then he said quickly, ”Merelli knew my mother; my mother who was at service with Signor Mequinez. He alone could tell me where she is. I have come to America to find my mother. Merelli sent her our letters. I must find my mother.”

”Poor boy!” said the woman; ”I don't know. I can ask the boy in the courtyard. He knew the young man who did Merelli's errands. He may be able to tell us something.”

She went to the end of the shop and called the lad, who came instantly.

”Tell me,” asked the shopwoman, ”do you remember whether Merelli's young man went occasionally to carry letters to a woman in service, in the house of the _son of the country_?”

”To Signor Mequinez,” replied the lad; ”yes, signora, sometimes he did.

At the end of the street _del los Artes_.”

”Ah! thanks, signora!” cried Marco. ”Tell me the number; don't you know it? Send some one with me; come with me instantly, my boy; I have still a few soldi.”

And he said this with so much warmth, that without waiting for the woman to request him, the boy replied, ”Come,” and at once set out at a rapid pace.

They proceeded almost at a run, without uttering a word, to the end of the extremely long street, made their way into the entrance of a little white house, and halted in front of a handsome iron gate, through which they could see a small yard, filled with vases of flowers. Marco gave a tug at the bell.

A young lady made her appearance.

”The Mequinez family lives here, does it not?” demanded the lad anxiously.

”They did live here,” replied the young lady, p.r.o.nouncing her Italian in Spanish fas.h.i.+on. ”Now we, the Zeballos, live here.”

”And where have the Mequinez gone?” asked Marco, his heart palpitating.

”They have gone to Cordova.”

”Cordova!” exclaimed Marco. ”Where is Cordova? And the person whom they had in their service? The woman, my mother! Their servant was my mother!

Have they taken my mother away, too?”

The young lady looked at him and said: ”I do not know. Perhaps my father may know, for he knew them when they went away. Wait a moment.”

She ran away, and soon returned with her father, a tall gentleman, with a gray beard. He looked intently for a minute at this sympathetic type of a little Genoese sailor, with his golden hair and his aquiline nose, and asked him in broken Italian, ”Is your mother a Genoese?”

Marco replied that she was.

”Well then, the Genoese maid went with them; that I know for certain.”

”And where have they gone?”

”To Cordova, a city.”

The boy gave vent to a sigh; then he said with resignation, ”Then I will go to Cordova.”

”Ah, poor child!” exclaimed the gentleman in Spanish; ”poor boy! Cordova is hundreds of miles from here.”

Marco turned as white as a corpse, and clung with one hand to the railings.

”Let us see, let us see,” said the gentleman, moved to pity, and opening the door; ”come inside a moment; let us see if anything can be done.” He sat down, gave the boy a seat, and made him tell his story, listened to it very attentively, meditated a little, then said resolutely, ”You have no money, have you?”

”I still have some, a little,” answered Marco.

The gentleman reflected for five minutes more; then seated himself at a desk, wrote a letter, sealed it, and handing it to the boy, he said to him:--