Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/88

 that seems to be forever murmuring prayers. It is hard to understand, my mother says; she is so gentle and timid, with that thread of a voice, which is always even, which is hardly audible, and she never speaks loud nor flies into a passion; but, nevertheless, she keeps the boys so quiet that you cannot hear them, and the most roguish bow their heads when she merely admonishes them with her finger, so that her school seems like a church; and it is for this reason, also, that she is called “the little nun”.

But there is another one I like,—the young mistress of the lower first, the girl with the rosy face, who has two pretty dimples in her cheeks, and who wears a large red feather on her little bonnet, and a small cross of yellow glass on her neck. She is always cheerful, and keeps her class cheerful. She is always calling out with that silvery voice of hers, which makes her seem to be singing, and tapping her little rod on the table, and clapping her hands to impose silence. When they come out of school, she runs after one and another like a child, to bring them back into line. She pulls up the cape of one, and buttons the coat of another, so they may not take cold. She follows them even into the street, in order that they may not fall to quarrelling. She begs the parents not to whip them at home. She brings lozenges to those who have coughs. She lends her muff to those who are cold. And she is continually tormented by the smallest children, who caress her and demand kisses, and pull at her veil and mantle; but she lets them do it, and kisses them all with a smile, and returns home all rumpled and with her throat all bare, panting and happy, with her beautiful dimples