Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/287

Rh been established there for a very long time, a good Argentine family, which gave high wages and treated her well. For a short time she kept up a regular correspondence with her family. As it had been settled between them, her husband addressed his letters to his cousin, who forwarded them to the woman, and the latter handed her replies to him, and he dispatched them to Genoa, adding a few lines of his own. As she was earning eighty lire a month and spending nothing for herself, she sent home a handsome sum every three months, with which her husband, who was a man of honor, gradually paid off their most urgent debts, and thus regained his good reputation. In the meantime, he worked away and was satisfied with the state of his affairs, since he also cherished the hope that his wife would shortly return; for the house seemed empty without her, and the younger son in particular, who was extremely attached to his mother, was very much depressed, and could not be reconciled to having her so far away.

But a year had elapsed since they had parted; after a brief letter, in which she said that her health was not very good, they heard nothing more. They wrote twice to the cousin; the cousin did not reply. They wrote to the Argentine family where the woman was at service; but it is possible that the letter never reached them, for they had mispelled the name in addressing it: they received no answer. Fearing some misfortune, they wrote to the Italian Consulate at Buenos Ayres to have inquiries made, and after a lapse of three months they received a response from the consul, to the effect that in spite of advertisements in the