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 at last exploded. “But I have a music lesson at one o’clock and I have enough to swallow without this horrid cabbage.”

“I only wish you could be more moderate in other things instead of in eating, Dino,” said the mother with a melancholy smile. “You have hardly eaten anything, and I heard you cough all night. Your health worries me dreadfully, Dino. Did you cough much in school this morning?”

“Certainly, mother. But that is nothing to worry about,” Dino replied merrily. “It always goes away again. My professor said to-day that it would have been better for me to remain in the pastoral fields of my native village, than to have sought the dust-laden corners of town. But I answered: ‘Unfortunately the Latin language does not sprout from the pastoral fields, professor.’”

“Oh, I hope you did not answer that,” the mother said, quite frightened.

“Oh yes, but only in my thoughts! Please, mother, don’t worry about me,” Dino implored.

“I am afraid that your professor is right,” the mother said with a sigh. “But I have a