For a year he had
been much in love with a pretty Italian girl, daughter of an official,
long in the service of the Italian government at the port of New York.
Rosie Ricci was fifteen years old when she first met Leo. Dressed in
white, she entered an exhibition of water colors on W. 10th street with
her mother one May morning, as Leo had finished hanging a delicate marine
view sketched down the Narrows.
Glances only between Leo and Rosie were exchanged, but each formed the
resolution sometime, if possible, to know the other. Rosie's father had
died when she was only fourteen years old, and existence for Mrs. Ricci
and her little family had been a struggle. For the last year, a happy
change had come in their condition. A letter had been received from a
rich senator by Mrs. Ricci, which was couched in the tenderest language.
The senator explained in his letter that at a musicale, given on Fifth
Avenue, he had heard a Rosie Ricci sing a simple song that revived
memories of an early day. This fact, coupled with Rosie's charming
simplicity and vivacity of manner, fixed her name in his mind; later he
was reading the _New York Tribune_, and the name Ricci arrested his
attention.
Pages:
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85