Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/296

264 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 woman made her appearance.

“The Mequinez family live here, do they not?” asked the lad anxiously.

“They did live here,” replied the young lady, pronouncing her Italian in Spanish fashion. “Now we, the Zeballos, live here.”

“And where have the Mequinez family gone?” asked Marco, his heart throbbing.

“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 appealing 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.”