Carmella Commands
learned to operate the machine, and as a driver had won even Dixon’s critical praise. He had taught her that careful driving was more to be desired than skillful chance taking. Once, when she had been reckless, he refused to let her touch the wheel for a week. After that, she obeyed.
He had been afraid about that—afraid it would cost him her goodwill. He would have been staggered had he known that few things had ever given her a greater thrill, and that she had boasted about it to Tommaso.
“You see, padre mio,” she had said. “He is a man to be trusted. You need have no fear in giving me to him.”
“We shall see, when the time comes,” replied her father.
“When the time comes, you will be glad to have such a man want your Carmella,” she said.
Her entrance to high school was an event. She was absorbed by the opening vista of new knowledge. And for some reason she could not fathom, she felt a new and lively interest in learning. She felt like a conqueror over every lesson.
At home, the family conversation gradually came to “be more and more in English. Maria, now frankly letting Carmella help her with words and sentences, was able to speak the new tongue far better than her husband. But also she was more sensitive to ridicule.
Little Enrico was inclined to laugh at some of his mother’s errors. But, laughing once too often and
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