Page:Jean Webster--Much ado about Peter.djvu/155

Rh had undertaken the task of teaching Vittorio English, and the lessons were punctuated by the clear ring of her merry laugh.

In the evening the man was enticed to the back veranda, where he sat on the top step singing serenades to his own accompaniment on the mandolin, while the maids listened in rapt delight. Even Miss Ethel added her applause; overhearing the music, she haled Vittorio and his mandolin and Italian love songs to the front veranda to entertain her guests. Peter, who had never been invited to entertain Miss Ethel's guests, swallowed this latest triumph with what grace he might. The irony of the matter was that it had been Peter himself who had first rescued Vittorio from social obscurity, and who had insisted to the other sceptical ones that the man was "all right," in spite of the misfortune of having been born in Italy instead of in Ireland. He had not hoped to be taken so completely at his word.