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 Italian
Fluency 2
Intro
Fluency
Michael Campbell
Expression Michele Fortuna
 GMS INTENSIVE METHOD GSR RELAXED METHOD
Glossika Mass Sentences Glossika Spaced Repetition
Features: Sound files have A/B/C formats. Features: Our sound files include an
algorithm that introduces 10 sentences
A Files English - Target language 2x every day, with review of 40 sentences,
B Files English - space - Target 1x for a total of 1000 sentences in 104 days.
Requires less than 20 minutes daily.
C Files Target language only 1x

Useful for students with more Useful for people with busy
time to dedicate. schedules and limited study time.
HOW TO USE
❶ To familiarise yourself with IPA and spelling, Glossika recommends using the book
while listening to A or C sound files and going through all 1000 sentences on your first
day. Then you can start your training.

❷ Set up your schedule. It's your ❷ Set up your schedule. You can
choice, you can choose 20, 50 or listen to a single GSR file daily or even
100 sentences for daily practice. We double up. One book typically takes 3-4
recommend completing the following months to complete.
four steps.
Training Step １: Try repeating ❸ You can accompany with the GMS
the sentences with the same
speed and intonation in the A training when you have extra time to
sound files. practice.
Training Step ２: Dictation: use
the C sound files (and pausing) to
write out each sentence (in script
or IPA or your choice). Use the
book to check your answers.

Training Step ３: Recording:

record the sentences as best you
can. We recommend recording
the same sentences over a 3-day
period, and staggering them with
new ones.

Training Step ４: Use the B sound

files to train your interpretation
skills. Say your translation in the
space provided.

Reminder
Don't forget that if you run into problems, just skip over it! Keep working through the
sentences all the way to the end and don't worry about the ones you don't get. You'll
probably get it right the second time round. Remember, one practice session separated
by *one* sleep session yields the best results!
 2 ENIT

Glossika Mass Sentences

Italian

Fluency 2
Complete Fluency Course

Michael Campbell

Michele Fortuna

Glossika
ENIT 3

Glossika Mass Sentence Method

Italian Fluency 2

This edition published: JAN 2016

via license by Nolsen Bédon, Ltd.
Taipei, Taiwan

Authors: Michael Campbell, Michele Fortuna

Chief Editor: Michael Campbell
Translator: Michael Campbell, Michele Fortuna
Recording: Michael Campbell, Michele Fortuna
Editing Team: Claudia Chen, Sheena Chen
Consultant: Percy Wong
Programming: Edward Greve
Design: Glossika team

© 2016 Michael Campbell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered

trademarks, and are used only as samples of language use without intent to infringe.

glossika.com
 4 ENIT

Glossika Series
The following languages are available (not all are published in English):

Afroasiatic TYS Atayal NL Dutch IE: Romance Niger-Congo

BNN Bunun DE German
ILO Ilokano IS Icelandic
AM Amharic SDQ Seediq NO Norwegian PB Brazilian SW Swahili
ARE Egyptian TGL Tagalog SV Swedish Portuguese YO Yoruba
Arabic THW Thao CA Catalan
HA Hausa PT European
IV Hebrew IE: Portuguese Sino-Tibetan
AR Modern Caucasian Indo-Iranian FR French
Standard Arabic IT Italian
MY Burmese
ARM Moroccan RO Romanian
Dravidian BEN Bengali YUE Cantonese
Arabic ES Spanish
PRS Dari Persian ZH Chinese
(European)
GUJ Gujarati HAK Hakka
ESM Spanish
Altaic KAN Kannada HI Hindi ZS Mandarin
(Mexican)
MAL Malayalam KUR Kurmanji Chinese (Beijing)
TAM Tamil Kurdish WUS
AZ Azerbaijani TEL Telugu MAR Marathi IE: Slavic Shanghainese
JA Japanese NEP Nepali MNN Taiwanese
KK Kazakh FA Persian WUW
KR Korean IE: Baltic BEL Belarusian Wenzhounese
PAN Punjabi
MN Mongolian (India) BOS Bosnian
UZ Uzbek SIN Sinhala HR Croatian
LAV Latvian Tai-Kadai
KUS Sorani CS Czech
LIT Lithuanian
Kurdish MK Macedonian
Austroasiatic PL Polish
TGK Tajik LO Lao
IE: Celtic UR Urdu RU Russian
TH Thai
SRP Serbian
KH Khmer
SK Slovak
VNN Vietnamese
(Northern)
CYM Welsh IE: Other SL Slovene Uralic
UKR Ukrainian
VNS Vietnamese
(Southern) IE: Germanic SQ Albanian EST Estonian
HY Armenian Kartuli FI Finnish
EU Basque HU Hungarian
Austronesian EN American EO Esperanto
English EL Greek KA Georgian
DA Danish
AMP Amis
ENIT 5

Glossika Levels
Many of our languages are offered at different levels (check for availability):

Intro Level Fluency Level Expression Level

Pronunciation Courses Fluency Business Courses
Intro Course Daily Life Intensive Reading
Travel
Business Intro
 6 ENIT

Getting Started
For Busy People & Casual Learners
• 20 minutes per day, 3 months per book
• Use the Glossika Spaced Repetition (GSR) MP3 files, 1 per day. The files
are numbered for you.
• Keep going and don't worry if you miss something on the first day, you
will hear each sentence more than a dozen times over a 5 day period.

For Intensive Study

• 1-2 hours per day, 1 month per book

Log on to our website and download the Self Study Planner at: glossika.com/howto.

Steps:

1. Prepare (GMS-A). Follow the text as you listen to the GMS-A files (in
'GLOSSIKA-XX-GMS-A'). Listen to as many sentences as you can, and
keep going even when you miss a sentence or two. Try to focus on the
sounds and matching them to the text.
2. Listen (GMS-A). Try to repeat the target sentence with the speaker the
second time you hear it.
3. Write (GMS-C). Write down the sentences as quickly as you can, but hit
pause when you need to. Check your answers against the text.
4. Record (GMS-C). Listen to each sentence and record it yourself. Record
from what you hear, not from reading the text. You can use your mobile
phone or computer to do the recording. Play it back, and try to find the
differences between the original and your recording.
5. Interpret (GMS-B). Try to recall the target sentence in the gap after you
hear it in English. Try to say it out loud, and pause if necessary.
ENIT 7

Glossika Mass Sentence Method

Italian

Fluency 2
This GMS Fluency Series accompanies the GMS recordings and is a supplementary
course assisting you on your path to fluency. This course fills in the fluency training
that is lacking from other courses. Instead of advancing in the language via grammar,
GMS builds up sentences and lets students advance via the full range of expression
required to function in the target language.

GMS recordings prepare the student through translation and interpretation to become
proficient in speaking and listening.

Glossika Spaced Repetition (GSR) recordings are strongly recommended for those
who have trouble remembering the content. Through the hundred days of GSR
training, all the text in each of our GMS publications can be mastered with ease.
 8 ENIT

What is Glossika?
From the creation of various linguists and polyglots headed by Michael Campbell,
Glossika is a comprehensive and effective system that delivers speaking and listening
training to fluency.

It’s wise to use Glossika training materials together with your other study materials.
Don’t bet everything on Glossika. Always use as many materials as you can get your
hands on and do something from all of those materials daily. These are the methods
used by some of the world’s greatest polyglots and only ensures your success.

If you follow all the guidelines in our method you can also become proficiently
literate as well. But remember it’s easier to become literate in a language that you
can already speak than one that you can’t.

Most people will feel that since we only focus on speaking and listening, that the
Glossika method is too tough. It’s possible to finish one of our modules in one
month, in fact this is the speed at which we’ve been training our students for years: 2
hours weekly for 4 weeks is all you need to complete one module. Our students are
expected to do at least a half hour on their own every day through listening,
dictation, and recording. If you follow the method, you will have completed 10,000
sentence repetitions by the end of the month. This is sufficient enough to start to feel
your fluency come out, but you still have a long way to go.

This training model seems to fit well with students in East Asia learning tough
languages like English, because they are driven by the fact that they need a better job
or have some pressing issue to use their English. This drive makes them want to
succeed.

Non-East Asian users of the Glossika Mass Sentence (GMS) methods are split in two
groups: those who reap enormous benefit by completing the course, and others who
give up because it’s too tough to stick to the schedule. If you feel like our training is
too overwhelming or demands too much of your time, then I suggest you get your
hands on our Glossika Spaced Repetition (GSR) audio files which are designed for
people like you. So if you’re ambitious, use GMS. If you’re too busy or can’t stick to
a schedule, use GSR.
ENIT 9

Glossika Levels
The first goal we have in mind for you is Fluency. Our definition of fluency is simple
and easy to attain: speaking full sentences in one breath. Once you achieve fluency,
then we work with you on expanding your expression and vocabulary to all areas of
language competency. Our three levels correlate to the European standard:

• Introduction = A Levels
• Fluency = B Levels
• Expression = C Levels

The majority of foreign language learners are satisfied at a B Level and a few
continue on. But the level at which you want to speak a foreign language is your
choice. There is no requirement to continue to the highest level, and most people
never do as a B Level becomes their comfort zone.
 10 ENIT

Glossika Publications
Each Glossika publication comes in four formats:

• Print-On-Demand paperback text

• E-book text (available for various platforms)
• Glossika Mass Sentence audio files
• Glossika Spaced Repetition audio files

Some of our books include International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as well. Just check
for the IPA mark on our covers.

We strive to provide as much phonetic detail as we can in our IPA transcriptions, but
this is not always possible with every language.

As there are different ways to write IPA, our books will also let you know whether
it’s an underlying pronunciation (phonemic) with these symbols: / /, or if it’s a
surface pronunciation (phonetic) with these symbols: [ ].

IPA is the most scientific and precise way to represent the sounds of foreign
languages. Including IPA in language training guides is taking a step away from
previous decades of language publishing. We embrace the knowledge now available
to everybody via online resources like Wikipedia which allow anybody to learn the
IPA: something that could not be done before without attending university classes.

To get started, just point your browser to Wikipedia’s IPA page to learn more about
pronouncing the languages we publish.
ENIT 11

4 Secrets of the Mass Sentence

Method
When learning a foreign language it’s best to use full sentences for a number of
reasons:

1. Pronunciation—In languages like English, our words undergo a lot of

pronunciation and intonation changes when words get strung together in
sentences which has been well analyzed in linguistics. Likewise it is true
with languages like Chinese where the pronunciations and tones from
individual words change once they appear in a sentence. By following the
intonation and prosody of a native speaker saying a whole sentence, it’s
much easier to learn rather than trying to say string each word together
individually.
2. Syntax—the order of words, will be different than your own language.
Human thought usually occurs in complete ideas. Every society has
developed a way to express those ideas linearly by first saying what
happened (the verb), or by first saying who did it (the agent), etc. Paying
attention to this will accustom us to the way others speak.
3. Vocabulary—the meanings of words, never have just one meaning, and
their usage is always different. You always have to learn words in context
and which words they’re paired with. These are called collocations. To
“commit a crime” and to “commit to a relationship” use two different
verbs in most other languages. Never assume that learning “commit” by
itself will give you the answer. After a lifetime in lexicography, Patrick
Hanks “reached the alarming conclusion that words don’t have meaning,”
but rather that “definitions listed in dictionaries can be regarded as
presenting meaning potentials rather than meanings as such.” This is why
collocations are so important.
4. Grammar—the changes or morphology in words are always in flux.
Memorizing rules will not help you achieve fluency. You have to
experience them as a native speaker says them, repeat them as a native
speaker would, and through mass amount of practice come to an innate
understanding of the inner workings of a language’s morphology. Most
native speakers can’t explain their own grammar. It just happens.
 12 ENIT

How to Use GMS and GSR

The best way to use GMS is to find a certain time of day that works best for you
where you can concentrate. It doesn’t have to be a lot of time, maybe just 30 minutes
at most is fine. If you have more time, even better. Then schedule that time to be
your study time every day.

Try to tackle anywhere from 20 to 100 sentences per day in the GMS. Do what
you’re comfortable with.

Review the first 50 sentences in the book to get an idea of what will be said. Then
listen to the A files. If you can, try to write all the sentences down from the files as
dictation without looking at the text. This will force you to differentiate all the
sounds of the language. If you don’t like using the A files, you can switch to the C
files which only have the target language.

After dictation, check your work for any mistakes. These mistakes should tell you a
lot that you will improve on the next day.

Go through the files once again, repeating all the sentences. Then record yourself
saying all the sentences. Ideally, you should record these sentences four to five days
in a row in order to become very familiar with them.

All of the activities above may take more than one day or one setting, so go at the
pace that feels comfortable for you.

If this schedule is too difficult to adhere to, or you find that dictation and recording is
too much, then take a more relaxed approach with the GSR files. The GSR files in
most cases are shorter than twenty minutes, some go over due to the length of the
sentences. But this is the perfect attention span that most people have anyway. By the
end of the GSR files you should feel pretty tired, especially if you’re trying to repeat
everything.

The GSR files are numbered from Day 1 to Day 100. Just do one every day, as all
the five days of review sentences are built in. It’s that simple! Good luck.
ENIT 13

Sentence Mining
Sentence mining can be a fun activity where you find sentences that you like or feel
useful in the language you’re learning. We suggest keeping your list of sentences in a
spreadsheet that you can re-order how you wish.

It’s always a good idea to keep a list of all the sentences you’re learning or
mastering. They not only encompass a lot of vocabulary and their actual usage, or
“collocations”, but they give you a framework for speaking the language. It’s also
fun to keep track of your progress and see the number of sentences increasing.

Based on many tests we’ve conducted, we’ve found that students can reach a good
level of fluency with only a small number of sentences. For example, with just 3000
sentences, each trained 10 times over a period of 5 days, for a total of 30,000
sentences (repetitions), can make a difference between a completely mute person who
is shy and unsure how to speak and a talkative person who wants to talk about
everything. More importantly, the reps empower you to become a stronger speaker.

The sentences we have included in our Glossika courses have been carefully selected
to give you a wide range of expression. The sentences in our fluency modules target
the kinds of conversations that you have discussing day-to-day activities, the bulk of
what makes up our real-life conversations with friends and family. For some people
these sentences may feel really boring, but these sentences are carefully selected to
represent an array of discussing events that occur in the past, the present and the
future, and whether those actions are continuous or not, even in languages where
such grammar is not explicitly marked—especially in these languages as you need to
know how to convey your thoughts. The sentences are transparent enough that they
give you the tools to go and create dozens of more sentences based on the models we
give you.

As you work your way through our Fluency Series the sentences will cover all
aspects of grammar without actually teaching you grammar. You’ll find most of the
patterns used in all the tenses and aspects, passive and active (or ergative as is the
case in some languages we’re developing), indirect speech, and finally describing
events as if to a policeman. The sentences also present some transformational
patterns you can look out for. Sometimes we have more than one way to say
something in our own language, but maybe only one in a foreign language. And the
opposite is true where we may only have one way to say something whereas a
foreign language may have many.
 14 ENIT

Transformation Drills
A transformation is restating the same sentence with the same meaning, but using
different words or phrasing to accomplish this. A transformation is essentially a
translation, but inside the same language. A real example from Glossika’s business
module is:

• Could someone help me with my bags?

• Could I get a hand with these bags?

You may not necessarily say “hand” in a foreign language and that’s why direct
translation word-for-word can be dangerous. As you can see from these two
sentences, they’re translations of each other, but they express the same meaning.

To express yourself well in a foreign language, practice the art of restating

everything you say in your mother language. Find more ways to say the same thing.

There are in fact two kinds of transformation drills we can do. One is transformation
in our mother language and the other is transformation into our target language,
known as translation.

By transforming a sentence in your own language, you’ll get better at transforming it

into another language and eventually being able to formulate your ideas and thoughts
in that language. It’s a process and it won’t happen over night. Cultivate your ability
day by day.

Build a bridge to your new language through translation. The better you get, the less
you rely on the bridge until one day, you won’t need it at all.

Translation should never be word for word or literal. You should always aim to
achieve the exact same feeling in the foreign language. The only way to achieve this
is by someone who can create the sentences for you who already knows both
languages to such fluency that he knows the feeling created is exactly the same.

In fact, you’ll encounter many instances in our GMS publications where sentences
don’t seem to match up. The two languages are expressed completely differently, and
it seems it’s wrong. Believe us, we’ve not only gone over and tested each sentence in
real life situations, we’ve even refined the translations several times to the point that
this is really how we speak in this given situation.
ENIT 15

Supplementary Substitution Drills

Substitution drills are more or less the opposite of transformation drills. Instead of
restating the same thing in a different way, you’re saying a different thing using the
exact same way. So using the example from above we can create this substitution
drill:

• Could someone help me with my bags?

• Could someone help me with making dinner?

In this case, we have replaced the noun with a gerund phrase. The sentence has a
different meaning but it’s using the same structure. This drill also allows the learner
to recognize a pattern how to use a verb behind a preposition, especially after being
exposed to several instances of this type.

We can also combine transformation and substitution drills:

• Could someone help me with my bags?

• Could someone give me a hand with making dinner?

So it is encouraged that as you get more and more experience working through the
Glossika materials, that you not only write out and record more and more of your
own conversations, but also do more transformation and substitution drills on top of
the sentences we have included in the book.
 16 ENIT

Memory, The Brain, and Language

Acquisition
by Michael Campbell

We encounter a lot of new information every day that may or may not need to be
memorized. In fact, we’re doing it all the time when we make new friends,
remembering faces and other information related to our friends.

After some experience with language learning you’ll soon discover that languages are
just like a social landscape. Except instead of interconnected friends we have
interconnected words. In fact, looking at languages in this way makes it a lot more
fun as you get familiar with all the data.

Since languages are natural and all humans are able to use them naturally, it only
makes sense to learn languages in a natural way. In fact studies have found, and
many students having achieved fluency will attest to, the fact that words are much
easier to recognize in their written form if we already know them in the spoken form.
Remember that you already own the words you use to speak with. The written form
is just a record and it’s much easier to transfer what you know into written form than
trying to memorize something that is only written.

Trying to learn a language from the writing alone can be a real daunting task.
Learning to read a language you already speak is not hard at all. So don’t beat
yourself up trying to learn how to read a complicated script like Chinese if you have
no idea how to speak the language yet. It’s not as simple as one word = one
character. And the same holds true with English as sometimes many words make up
one idea, like “get over it”.

What is the relationship between memory and sleep? Our brain acquires experiences
throughout the day and records them as memories. If these memories are too
common, such as eating lunch, they get lost among all the others and we find it
difficult to remember one specific memory from the others. More importantly such
memories leave no impact or impression on us. However, a major event like a birth
or an accident obviously leaves a bigger impact. We attach importance to those
events.

Since our brain is constantly recording our daily life, it collects a lot of useless
information. Since this information is both mundane and unimportant to us, our brain
ENIT 17

has a built-in mechanism to deal with it. In other words, our brains dump the garbage
every day. Technically speaking our memories are connections between our nerve
cells and these connections lose strength if they are not recalled or used again.

During our sleep cycles our brain is reviewing all the events of the day. If you do not
recall those events the following day, the memory weakens. After three sleep cycles,
consider a memory gone if you haven’t recalled it. Some memories can be retained
longer because you may have anchored it better the first time you encountered it. An
anchor is connecting your memory with one of your senses or another pre-existing
memory. During your language learning process, this won’t happen until later in your
progress. So what can you do in the beginning?

A lot of memory experts claim that making outrageous stories about certain things
they’re learning help create that anchor where otherwise none would exist. Some
memory experts picture a house in their mind that they’re very familiar with and
walk around that house in a specific pre-arranged order. Then all the objects they’re
memorizing are placed in that house in specific locations. In order to recall them,
they just walk around the house.

I personally have had no luck making outrageous stories to memorize things. I’ve
found the house method very effective but it’s different than the particular way I use
it. This method is a form of “memory map”, or spatial memory, and for me
personally I prefer using real world maps. This probably originates from my better
than average ability to remember maps, so if you can, then use it! It’s not for
everybody though. It really works great for learning multiple languages.

What do languages and maps have in common? Everything can be put on a map, and
languages naturally are spoken in locations and spread around and change over time.
These changes in pronunciations of words creates a word history, or etymology. And
by understanding how pronunciations change over time and where populations
migrated, it’s quite easy to remember a large number of data with just a memory
map. This is how I anchor new languages I’m learning. I have a much bigger
challenge when I try a new language family. So I look for even deeper and longer
etymologies that are shared between language families, anything to help me establish
a link to some core vocabulary. Some words like “I” (think Old English “ic”) and
“me/mine” are essentially the same roots all over the world from Icelandic
(Indo-European) to Finnish (Uralic) to Japanese (Altaic?) to Samoan (Austronesian).

I don’t confuse languages because in my mind every language sounds unique and has
its own accent and mannerisms. I can also use my memory map to position myself in
the location where the language is spoken and imagine myself surrounded by the
people of that country. This helps me adapt to their expressions and mannerisms, but
more importantly, eliminates interference from other languages. And when I mentally
 18 ENIT

set myself up in this way, the chance of confusing a word from another language
simply doesn’t happen.

When I’ve actually used a specific way of speaking and I’ve done it several days in a
row, I know that the connections in my head are now strengthening and taking root.
Not using them three days in a row creates a complete loss, however actively using
them (not passively listening) three days in a row creates a memory that stays for a
lifetime. Then you no longer need the anchors and the memory is just a part of you.

You’ll have noticed that the Glossika training method gives a translation for every
sentence, and in fact we use translation as one of the major anchors for you. In this
way 1) the translation acts as an anchor, 2) you have intelligible input, 3) you easily
start to recognize patterns. Pattern recognition is the single most important skill you
need for learning a foreign language.

A lot of people think that translation should be avoided at all costs when learning a
foreign language. However, based on thousands of tests I’ve given my students over
a ten-year period, I’ve found that just operating in the foreign language itself creates
a false sense of understanding and you have a much higher chance of hurting
yourself in the long run by creating false realities.

I set up a specific test. I asked my students to translate back into their mother tongue
(Chinese) what they heard me saying. These were students who could already hold
conversations in English. I found the results rather shocking. Sentences with certain
word combinations or phrases really caused a lot of misunderstanding, like “might as
well” or “can’t do it until”, resulted in a lot of guesswork and rather incorrect
answers.

If you assume you can think and operate in a foreign language without being able to
translate what’s being said, you’re fooling yourself into false comprehension. Train
yourself to translate everything into your foreign language. This again is an anchor
that you can eventually abandon when you become very comfortable with the new
language.

Finally, our brain really is a sponge. But you have to create the structure of the
sponge. Memorizing vocabulary in a language that you don’t know is like adding
water to a sponge that has no structure: it all flows out.

In order to create a foreign language structure, or “sponge”, you need to create

sentences that are natural and innate. You start with sentence structures with basic,
common vocabulary that’s easy enough to master and start building from there. With
less than 100 words, you can build thousands of sentences to fluency, slowly one by
one adding more and more vocabulary. Soon, you’re speaking with natural fluency
and you have a working vocabulary of several thousand words.
ENIT 19

If you ever learn new vocabulary in isolation, you have to start using it immediately
in meaningful sentences. Hopefully sentences you want to use. If you can’t make a
sentence with it, then the vocabulary is useless.

Vocabulary shouldn’t be memorized haphazardly because vocabulary itself is

variable. The words we use in our language are only a tool for conveying a larger
message, and every language uses different words to convey the same message. Look
for the message, pay attention to the specific words used, then learn those words.
Memorizing words from a wordlist will not help you with this task.

Recently a friend showed me his wordlist for learning Chinese, using a kind of
spaced repetition flashcard program where he could download a “deck”. I thought it
was a great idea until I saw the words he was trying to learn. I tried explaining that
learning these characters out of context do not have the meanings on his cards and
they will mislead him into a false understanding, especially individual characters.
This would only work if they were a review from a text he had read, where all the
vocabulary appeared in real sentences and a story to tell, but they weren’t. From a
long-term point of view, I could see that it would hurt him and require twice as much
time to re-learn everything. From the short-term point of view, there was definitely a
feeling of progress and mastery and he was happy with that and I dropped the issue.
 20 ENIT

Italian Background and

Pronunciation
• Classification: Indo-European Language Family - Romance Branch
• Writing: Latin

• Consonants:

/m p˭ b f v n t˭ ʦ˭ ʣ s z l r ʧ˭ ʤ ʃ ɲ j ʎ k˭ ɡ w/

Unvoiced stops (p, t, k) are not aspirated /p˭ t˭ k˭/ different from English.

• Vowels:

/i u e o ɛ ɔ a/

• IPA: narrow transcription

• Tones/Pitch: normally penultimate

• Word Order: Subject - Verb - Object
• Adjective Order: Noun - Adjective
• Possessive Order: Noun - Genitive
• Adposition Order: Preposition - Noun
• Dependent Clause: Dependent - Noun, Noun - Relative Clause
• Verbs: Tense (present, past, future) and Aspect (perfect and imperfect) and
Mood (indicative, subjunctive)
• Nouns: 3 genders, indefinite/definite
• Pronouns: 1st/2nd/3rd, masc/fem/neut, sing/pl, reflexive, 6 conjugations

Italian Pronunciation
In all of our books I discuss phonemic and phonetic differences extensively and
Italian is no stranger to this phenomenon. What we normally learn in textbooks are
the underlying pronunciations, in other words phonemic pronunciations. In real life
however, people transform their sounds into surface pronunciations, referred to as
phonetic.
ENIT 21

If you're a native speaker of English, the easiest example to bring your attention to is
the letter {t}. The average American pronounces {t} aspirated, unaspirated, as a flap,
or as a glottal stop. It varies from speaker to speaker and you'll find that British
speakers are polarized to more aspiration or more glottal stops than the average
American. Even though each {t} sounds different, we still recognize all this variation
as the letter {t}.

Native speakers of English fail to recognize the unaspirated forms easily. This is
because they most frequently show up behind the letter {s}. But they do occur
elsewhere. Both Americans and British speakers pronounce the {k} in "marketing"
unaspirated, but the {t} may be flapped by Americans and aspirated by British
speakers. These weak syllables are the places where aspiration gets dropped by most
Americans.

ASPIRATION
It's important to note at this point that aspiration does not surface in Italian. So if
your native language is English, you may at first have some trouble distinguishing
them. To the untrained ear:

English {b} sounds similar to both Italian {p} and {b}; English {t} sounds similar to
both Italian {t} and {d}; English {k} sounds similar to both Italian {k} and {g}.

SEVEN PHONETIC VOWELS

When learning Italian we will most readily identify five phonemic vowels {a, e, i, o,
u}, however two of these vowels each have two phonetic values which we can write
as follows: /e/ = [e, ɛ] /o/ = [o, ɔ]

In other words, to speak Italian properly we will need to pay attention to which kind
of pronunciation Italians actually use when they say {e} and {o}. It is like the
difference between a long and short {o} in English: English speakers really do hear
that difference. And likewise so will Italians when you speak Italian.

Both letters {i} and {u} also act as semivowels, like English {y} and {w}. The letter
{i} actually participates in making some consonants palatal, sounding like English
{sh}, {dge} and {ch}. But opposite of English, the use of the letter {h} cancels the
palatalization. See the palatalization section below.
 22 ENIT

PHONETIC {s}
The letter {s} is sometimes voiced (sounding like the letter {z}) similar to how it
occurs in English (like "has, does, is, occurs," etc). However, the phenomenon is not
as widespread in Italian as it is in English. It occurs mostly at the beginning of words
only when it precedes another voiced consonant like /b, d, ɡ, m, n, l/. It only
sometimes occurs in the middle of words, but only if surrounded by vowels. Many
adjective endings in -oso and -eso do not have voiced {s}.

STRESS
Italian marks stress with the grave accent, which is opposite of Spanish, as in the
following letters: {à, è, ì, ò, ù}. You may also see the accute accent {é} which is
more to differentiate a word rather than to actually stress that letter.

However, Italian does not mark the stress as much as Spanish does. In fact, most of
the times the stress is on the penultimate syllable, but there are many exceptions.
And because of this, it is often hard for the learner to guess where the correct stress
is. One notable unwritten exception is when a verb is conjugated for "they" as in
"they speak": parlono. The stress does not usually fall on the -ono ending (unless the
verb is so short, like sono), even in nouns like "telefono". Many words ending in
-olo, -bbere, -ssero, -ssimo, -ano also do not take stress. Most verbs that end in -ere
have stress on the root rather than the ending. Notable exceptions are tenere and
vedere (and those that contain them such as ottenere and rivedere). Here is a list of
more exceptions: cadere, attravere, potere, avere, sapere, dovere, piacere, godere.
Verbs that contain pronominal endings (attaching pronouns to the end of verbs: -lo,
-la, -li, -le, -mi, -ti, -vi, -ci, -si, -melo, -glielo, etc.) maintain their original stress
position.

In order to aid the learner in learning the stress, we follow the custom of most Italian
publications by marking the stress with a dot under the vowel that gets the stress [ạ,
ẹ, ɛ̣, ị, ọ, ɔ̣, ụ].

PALATALIZATION
These rules are typical for most languages that have evolved from Latin (French,
Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian). And likewise, many words borrowed
into English follow the same rules. Normally the appearance of the letter {i} or {e}
after {g} or {c} or {sc} changes that letter into a palatal sound. We have examples of
this in English:
ENIT 23

The first {g} in "gigantic" undergoes the change because of the {i}. The second {c}
in "conceive" undergoes the change because of the {e}. The {sc} in "conscience"
undergoes the change because of the {i}.

In Italian, {gi, ge, ci, ce, sci, sce} are all palatalized. In reality they are postalveolars
almost identical to the English {j, ch, sh} respectively. When the Italian {i} is
followed by another vowel, the {i} isn't pronounced, except in the word "sciare"
/ʃiare/ (to ski).

In order to cancel the rule, Italian simply adds {h} before the {i}. We're already
familiar with this spelling in English in words like "spaghetti" and "orchestra".

You may recall from your Italian studies that {gn} and {gl} are palatalized versions
of {n} and {l}, so the {g} is not pronounced.

GRAMMAR
This book does not intend to teach grammar. In fact, we strongly recommend you
have a good reference book or other textbooks that you can refer to while you work
through this course. As a quick reference:

Standard rules: Masculine: singular {-o}, plural {-i} Feminine: singular {-a}, plural
{-e} Nouns borrowed from Greek may appear feminine but may actually be
masculine.
 24 ENIT

Vocabulary: Italian
Prepositions

about riguardo a
above sopra
according to secondo, a seconda di
across attraverso
after dopo
against contro
among tra
around intorno a
as come
as far as fino a
as well as come pure, in aggiunta
at a
because of a causa di
before prima
behind dietro
below sotto
beneath al di sotto
beside accanto a
between tra
beyond al di là di
but ma
by da
close to nei pressi di
despite nonostante
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 Charity and Hope clapped their hands; but Faith did not
even smile. Her Granny spoke to her lovingly before she
went to bed, but she made little response. Aunt Alice told
her not to be sulky, and that made her feel worse. When
she went upstairs to bed she felt she was the most ill-used
little girl in all the world. But when she knelt down to say
her prayers, better thoughts began to come to her.

"I did think I should never feel unhappy again because

of the Comforter," she thought. "I suppose He has gone
away quite disgusted with me, I don't feel Him near me
now. I just feel angry still, because I'm so disappointed!
And I don't care about the strawberries a bit. I wanted the
puppy. But nobody cares. Even Charity and Hope, who
seemed to want him, have quite forgotten all about him
now, and they laugh and talk and think me silly not to laugh
too. Oh, please, God, do send the Comforter back. Perhaps
He would make me feel good again. I don't feel it now. I'm
sorry for being so cross."

Faith was getting rather near comfort now. When once

she had owned that she had been in the wrong she began
to feel better.

And before she fell asleep that night she had the feeling
that the Comforter was near her, and that she was being
made happy once more.

When the next morning dawned she found that the sun
was shining and the birds singing, and life before her was
bright, as it always was.

And she was quite ready to talk enthusiastically over

the strawberry gathering. Charity and Hope were
accustomed to her moods. They knew she felt things more
deeply than they did, and were thankful to see her scamper
out into the orchard before breakfast, and come in singing
under her breath, as she pulled her chair towards the table.

Nobody alluded to the trouble of yesterday, and, child-

like, Faith soon pushed it into the background, and threw
herself into the present without a shadow of care or
disappointment upon her little face.

CHAPTER X
STRAWBERRY PICKING

THE strawberry gathering was a great success. It was a

long walk, but when at last they reached the spot, and
found a sloping and rather uncultivated piece of ground
covered with red strawberries, the children screamed with
delight. There was a stream at the bottom, and a wood on
the upper side. Hope said with ecstasy:

"It has everything we want, Aunt Alice. We can get

wood to light a fire, and water for the kettle to boil."

"Yes," said Aunt Alice, who seemed as happy as the

children: "I only wish that dear Granny was here to enjoy it
too, but it would have been too long a walk for her. I have a
dream sometimes of getting a donkey and a little trap, then
Granny could drive and enjoy the country as we do."

"Oh, Aunt Alice, how lovely! Do get a donkey," pleaded

the children.
 But Aunt Alice shook her head.

"How do you think we could afford to buy one? It's just

as much as we can do to feed and clothe you all."

"It's a pity we aren't birds," said Faith; "then we could

fly about and feed ourselves. Don't you think we might live
on wild things? Strawberries and nuts and mushrooms—
they don't cost money, do they?"

"We won't talk of money now," said Aunt Alice

cheerfully, "let us all pick as hard as we can. If we get a
great many baskets full, I may be able to make some jam."

So they set to work. The strawberries were very small,

and it took a long time to fill a basket, but the little girls
were perfectly happy. The novelty of it delighted them.

And then when dinner time came, Aunt Alice said they
would all have an hour's rest. She sat down with a
newspaper at the foot of a tree, but the children could not
keep still. They dashed into the wood and brought out
armfuls of sticks, and Aunt Alice gave them a match. It was
some time before the fire would burn. They had not much
experience in fire building out of doors, but at last they
were successful, and then the little tin kettle, which Aunt
Alice had brought in her basket, was taken down to the
stream and filled with water, and placed on the fire.

Aunt Alice put down her newspaper, and unpacked her

basket. The kettle soon boiled, and cups of tea, with bread
and cheese sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs and plain slices of
cake seemed a very nice and unusual dinner to the children.

"Oh," said Hope, "if only we could always have meals

out of doors."
 "Then one day," said Aunt Alice, "you would all come to
me and say:

"'Please, for a very great treat may we have dinner

indoors to-day? It would be so lovely to sit up on proper
chairs and a real table, and have no buzzing flies or nasty
caterpillars crawling over our food.'"

As she finished speaking, Aunt Alice fished a caterpillar

out of her tea.

Charity looked thoughtful.

"Perhaps we should feel like that," she said; "it's

because we never do it that we like to do it now."

"That's it," said her Aunt; "it's the unexpected and

unusual that pleases us so."

"But if I was rich," said Charity, knitting her brows, "I

could have something new every day. I should like to have
a big house and a lot of visitors, and I would give them
surprises every day."

"Well now, let's pretend you are rich," said Hope, "and
Granny and Aunt Alice and Faith and I would come and see
you. What surprises could you give us? Tell."

Charity sat up and hugged her knees. Her eyes were

away on some distant hills. She was silent for a moment or
two, then she began to speak.

"The first morning after breakfast I would lead Granny

down the steps, and there would be waiting for her a
beautiful little pony carriage painted blue with white velvet
cushions, and two white Arab ponies with flowing manes
and tails, and a little boy would get up on the seat behind
and fold his arms and Granny would step in and take the
reins in her hands and drive away miles into the most
beautiful country she has ever seen. Granny likes driving
herself. She always used to do that, when she was rich,
didn't she, Aunt Alice?"

"I don't think dear Granny was ever rich," said Aunt
Alice, laughing.

"Oh, go on, Charity! What about me?" asked Hope.

Charity smiled radiantly.

"Oh, of course, I would give you a horse to ride, and six

dogs, and a part of the garden, which would be wired into a
little zoo, and there would be all kinds of animals in it, and
at the side a hospital where you would doctor the sick ones
and mend their broken legs."

"Oh, how heavenly!"

"And Faith," went on Charity, "would have to come out

with me, and pay visits to all kinds of wonderful old men
with beards. Some would live in cottages, and give her
baked apples for tea, some would live in beautiful houses,
but they would all be very glad to see her and would sit up
and talk with her for hours."

"Oh," cried Faith, clapping her hands, "I think I should

have the best, for my surprise would be fresh every day. I
could see one new old man every day, and Charity and
Granny would soon come to the end of theirs. What about
Aunt Alice?"

Charity looked thoughtful.

 "I should take her one day into the drawing-room, and
there would be a tall, nice, smiling man, with manners like
a prince. And then I should shut the door and go away, and
he would ask her to marry him, and he would take her away
to a house nearly as big as mine—not quite, perhaps."

"You ridiculous child!" laughed Aunt Alice.

"Mrs. Cox always said you ought to get married," said

Charity, "she said you were too young and pretty to be an
old maid."

"Well," said Aunt Alice, "you would be quite a fairy

godmother to us all, Charity, but, my dear child, the novelty
of riches even wears off after a time. If you can have
everything you want, you soon want nothing, and that
stage brings discontent as well as content."

The children could not follow this.

They finished their lunch, washed their cups and plates

up in the stream; then set to work picking strawberries
again.

Later on they had an early tea before they started to

walk home. And as they were in the middle of it who should
come riding by but the Pirate. He recognised the children
and rode up to them, dismounting, and talking to Aunt Alice
for some minutes. Then she asked him if he would like a
cup of tea, and he said he would love it. So he tied his
horse to a tree stump, and sat down upon the ground with
them. The little girls chattered to him freely; and he told
them some very funny stories about people and animals he
had met abroad. He stayed quite a long time; and agreed
with the children that meals in the open air tasted much
better than in the house.
 "Give me a tent and a gun and a fishing rod," he said,
"and I would want nothing else if sport were good."

"Have you ever had a tent?" asked Hope.

"Yes, I went a shooting expedition in Africa with two

Kaffirs," he said; "but that journey ended disastrously for
me. I had to swim a river and couldn't change my clothes,
and had a bout of rheumatic fever which nearly finished me,
and has left me a crock to the end of my days!"

A shadow came over his face. They all felt very sorry for
him, and then he laughed but not very happily.

"So that's why I funk at home, instead of taking my

place in the fighting line," he said.

"There's a lot of hard fighting being done at home," said

Aunt Alice quietly.

He looked at her, and when their eyes met, they

understood each other. The young man was not the only
one who was doing his duty at home without getting any
praise or honour for it. Aunt Alice was doing the same, and
she knew that it was hard work sometimes.

He accompanied them home and let the little girls ride

his horse in turn, he walking by their side and talking to
Aunt Alice about many things.

"My Nora is as quiet and steady as a rock," he said; "so

you need not be afraid she will run away from you."

"She likes to walk with you, doesn't she?" said

observant Hope; "she keeps looking round to see if you are
there!"
 "Yes, Nora and I are fast friends. We've been twelve
years together now."

He insisted upon carrying most of the baskets, and

when they reached home Faith hastily whispered something
into her Aunt's ear.

She smiled.

"Faith wants to send your father some of these

strawberries to taste. What do you think about it?"

"He'll be awfully pleased, of course."

So Faith ran indoors and got a tiny pet basket of her

own, and filled it with strawberries. She tied a red ribbon
round it, and asked the young man to give it to his father
with her "dearest love."

He promised to do so, and then the little girls ran

indoors to tell Granny of their happy day.

Faith was much delighted the next day when a note

arrived for her from old Mr. Cardwell. She opened it with
much pride and showed it to everyone:

"DEAR LITTLE MISS MOTH,

"I thank you for your kind thought for a cross

old man. The berries were really too pretty to
be eaten. But to please you I have devoured
them, and have been taken back to my
boyhood's days. I know the spot where they
grow. When you come next Saturday, I will tell
you an anecdote concerning them.
 "Your old
friend,
"W.
CARDWELL."

"He isn't a cross old man to me," said Faith. "I like him
next to Timothy."

"I shouldn't like to be called Miss Moth," said Charity; "a

moth is a horrid, dusty thing—lives on old clothes; the Bible
says it corrupts, that's an awful thing to do."

Faith's face fell.

"I hope I don't corrupt," she said; "what does it mean?"

"Well, you do like old things," said Hope; "you like old
men, so that part fits you."

"I think corrupt means make rotten or bad," said

Charity.

"How dreadful!" said Faith. "I'm sure Mr. Cardwell didn't

mean to call me anything horrid. I'll ask him. But I think he
thought I looked like a moth, he said I came into his room
like one."

"And you're easily crushed," said Charity laughing; "yes,

you're rather like a moth in that way."

Then she said:

"Hope and I mean to get a special friend. Of course we

have Sir George, but we mean to get somebody else. And I
know who it will be!"
 "Who is it?" asked Faith.

But Charity nodded her head mysteriously.

"Somebody I've met. You haven't met them. It's awfully

nice in the country, we're always finding out new people."

She would say nothing more to Faith, but whispered in

corners to Hope; and Faith did not like that at all.

Charity was a little bit jealous of Faith going off to the

Towers every Saturday afternoon. Nothing stopped it. If it
was a wet day, a closed carriage arrived for her.

And Hope said, laughing, one day when Charity, with a

sulky face, watched Faith driving away, "We won't be like
Cinderella's sisters, Charity. Faith is rather like Cinderella,
isn't she? But we won't be cross about it."

And then it was that Charity began to think about

finding some new friend to be quits with Faith.

She was marvellously successful.

One Saturday she and Hope were taking a walk across

some fields to a farm; their Aunt had sent them to fetch
some eggs. On the way they passed a lady sitting on a
campstool making a sketch of an old ruined mill by the
stream. She looked up and smiled at them as they passed
her, and made some remark about the weather. The little
girls were rather shy and went on to the farm. They
discovered that the artist's name was Miss Huntingdon, and
that she had come to the farm to lodge for the summer.
Mrs. Davis, the farmer's wife, loved to talk, and she told the
children all about her.
 "I did use to be her nurse—Miss Mary was always my
favourite—she had three brothers—and now she lives in a
big house in London with her father—he have got war work
and so did Miss Mary have—but she broke down, and the
doctors said she must rest in the country, and so she have
come down here. A beautiful painter she be! She always
painted, Miss Mary did, and many's the time I punished her
for daubing her white pinnies all over with paint."

The little girls listened to this and much more, and they
had seen Miss Huntingdon several times since, and thought
she had a very nice face. Charity now determined to make
friends with her.

She and Hope set out one warm afternoon in July to

track her down. They knew she painted by the river, and it
was not long before they found her. But it needed some
courage to go up and begin making acquaintance with her.

Hope's courage gave out: she hid behind a tree, whilst

Charity crept boldly forwards, until she reached Miss
Huntingdon, who was very busy making a pretty sketch of
the river and the fields beyond.

"Oh," sighed Charity, "how I wish I could paint!"

Miss Huntingdon turned her head and smiled at her. "Do

you? Have you ever tried?"

"We paint pictures for scrap-books," said Charity,

waxing confidential; "but we haven't very good paints. Not
like yours. May I watch you? And may Hope? She's afraid to
come near."

"Oh, you mustn't be afraid of me," said Miss

Huntingdon, laughing; "and I'm rather a sociable person. I
like to have people to talk to. You see, I can paint and talk
at the same time. I have seen you before, haven't I? Do
you live near here?"

Charity beckoned to Hope, then began eagerly telling

Miss Huntingdon all about themselves. Before long Hope
was brave enough to put in her word, and Miss Huntingdon
plainly showed them that she would like to be friendly.
Charity told her that they knew Mrs. Davis and often got
eggs from her.

"Next time you come over you must let me know you
are there. I have such a dear old sitting-room at the Farm."

"May we be friends with you?" asked Charity eagerly.

Miss Huntingdon laughed aloud.

"You are the quaintest children I have ever seen!" she

said.

Hope felt compelled to explain Charity's somewhat

forward behaviour.

"It's really because Faith makes friends with old men,

and we want to make friends with somebody else. Faith
goes out to tea every Saturday to the Towers, and Charity
and I have to stay at home."

"Oh, I see daylight. Faith is your other sister, is she not?

And you would like to come to tea with me on Saturday? I
shall be delighted. It will cheer me up. And I'll get Mrs.
Davis to make one of her big tea-cakes. That's settled,
then, and I shall expect you next Saturday at four o'clock."

Charity and Hope were very uncomfortable. Charity

said:
 "We never meant to ask you to ask us. And Granny and
Aunt Alice mightn't let us come. It's very kind of you, but if
you'll let us come and talk to you while you are painting
sometimes and be friends, we would like to do that, without
coming to tea."

Miss Huntingdon looked at Charity's red cheeks and

Hope's downcast eyes and understood.

"Very well," she said; "we'll just be friends and tea will
come later on. Now I've finished my sketch for to-day, so
must say good-bye to you. And I shall be here every
afternoon this week, so you will know where to find me."

Charity and Hope went home and informed Faith that

they had got a charming friend and would be very often
away in the woods with her.

Faith of course was curious, but for some time she could
not find out who it was.

And then one day Granny and Aunt Alice went to tea
with Lady Melville and met Miss Huntingdon, and Aunt Alice
and she became the greatest friends. But Charity and Hope
still maintained that they had the first claim upon her, and
the invitation to take tea with her came and was accepted.

They went to the Farm when Faith went to the Towers

and all seemed satisfied.

CHAPTER XI
 THE GREY DONKEY

THE summer holidays came at last and Miss Vale said

good-bye to her pupils for six weeks.

Charlie Evans had been away with his mother for a

month at the seaside. Now he returned looking as brown as
a berry and much stronger in every way. He came round to
the Cottage the first evening after his return home, and the
little girls took him into the orchard, where they had been
trying to erect a kind of tent with an old piece of sacking
and four stout sticks, which wobbled about in the ground at
the least touch. Charlie did not think much of their attempt.

"Why don't you get a man to put the poles in?" he said.
"I know a chap who would do it. The blacksmith's son. He
comes once a week to do up our garden."

"But he would want to be paid," said Charity, anxiously.

"No, he wouldn't. He's very fond of me. I'll ask him as a

favour. What's the tent going to be? A wigwam or a hunting
box or a gipsy encampment?"

"Which do you think would be nicest?" asked Hope.

Charlie cocked his head on one side and considered.

"A hunting box—at least, a tent pitched near an African

jungle. If you get it made tight and taut, I'll come round to-
morrow morning with some of my hunting trophies, and I'll
still be Captain, and my wife must make the tent
comfortable and do the cooking, and Bolt and Ben must
come out hunting with me. Will your aunt let me spend the
day here, if I bring some food? You can't hunt unless you
have the whole day out."

"Oh, we'll ask her," said Charity excitedly; "but you

must get the tent fixed properly."

"All right," said Charlie, "I'll go and get the man, and
you go in and tell your aunt about it."

He marched off up the village, and Granny and Aunt

Alice were besought by the little girls for leave to spend a
whole day out in the orchard without any interruption.

"And if you could give me something real to cook," said

Charity, following her aunt into the kitchen, "something that
I could put into a pot, and boil over a real fire."

Aunt Alice not only gave them leave to have Charlie for
the whole day, but said she would give them what they
wanted for dinner and tea.

"Only mind this," she said, "you must not be running

backwards and forwards to the house all day long. Get what
you want in the morning, and stay out all day, as if you
were having a picnic miles off from home. I shall not expect
you in till tea-time, and you must get your wood for the fire
yourselves, not take any of mine from the wood-shed. And
be sure to have your fire out of reach of the apple trees, or
you will be burning them."

The children were delighted.

"It is nice to have Charlie back," said Hope; "he always

thinks of such jolly things."

Charlie was as good as his word. John Lucas, the

blacksmith's son, came along, and soon made the tent firm
for the children. He brought a couple of extra poles and
made a splendid framework for a tent. Charity got hold of
some more old sacks, and the little girls worked hard all
that day making their tent as comfortable as they could.

The next morning they could hardly eat any breakfast

from excitement. Aunt Alice gave them a little kettle and an
old saucepan, and a few cracked cups and saucers. Then
she made up a basket of food, and delivered it into Charity's
hands.

When they went out into the orchard at nine o'clock,

they found Charlie had already arrived. He had trundled a
small wheelbarrow down from his home, with a lot of his
pet possessions. They spent nearly an hour in adorning
their tent. He had an old leopard skin, which was placed on
the ground. Some curious assegais and old bows and
arrows he fastened up inside, and then he showed the little
girls about a dozen skins of different small animals, which
he had cured and mounted himself. There was a badger's
skin, a stoat's, a grey rat's, and four or five mole skins.
These he pinned up round the tent with great pride. Then
over the entrance, he fastened up with string a dreadful-
looking skull. It really belonged to an old sheep, but he
said:

"This keeps away Indians and bushrangers. It shows I

kill my enemies with the greatest ease."

Then underneath the skull, he put up a big printed

paper. The letters were all painted in red ink.

"Here lives Captain Charles, the Great Hunter and Lion

Killer. Trespassers will be shot without warning."

"What will you shoot them with?" asked Charity.

 Charlie produced his fire-arms promptly. He had an air
gun, a bow and arrow, and a toy pistol. The little girls were
quite awed.

Then began a very delightful day. Charity was perfectly

happy peeling and boiling some potatoes and onions, and
putting a bit of bacon in her saucepan over a wood fire, just
outside the hut. Charlie went across the fields with Hope
and Faith, tracking all kinds of wild animals. The only thing
that spoiled Faith's enjoyment was that he actually shot a
rat with his air gun; and when he pursued it into a corner
behind a haystack, he finished it with a stout stick. Faith
fled from him shuddering, when he held it up to her by its
tail.

"You little stupid! It's a—a skunk—an awful smelling

animal which needs to be buried at once, but it is a very
good kind of creature to kill."

"Oh, bury it quick!" cried Faith, "Don't let me see the

poor thing—it's cruel to kill anything."

"But I'm a hunter," said Charlie. "Oh, what a shame it is

I have only girls to play with!"

"I'm not like Faith," asserted Hope. "Don't mind her,

she's always fussing over dead things. Aunt Alice lets Spicer
catch the mice, and this is a rat. There's no difference."

Faith tried to hide her horror. She liked the stalking

after game, but she was always glad when the rabbit fled
away, and the bird flew off out of reach of Charlie's gun.

At seven o'clock that evening, Aunt Alice went out to

call the little girls in. She found them all sitting on the
ground inside the tent listening to one of Charlie's stories.
The fire was blazing away merrily outside. They were very
loth to leave their play. Aunt Alice made them put out the
fire, and Charlie took a reluctant departure. He left all his
skins with them.

"I'm going to drive with Dad to-morrow, but perhaps I

can come round the next day," he said. And then he went
off.

"Oh, Aunt Alice, we have enjoyed ourselves," Charity

said. "And our dinner was delicious. And in the afternoon I
joined the hunters and we went through the woods for
miles, and we saw a squirrel and a weasel. Charlie knows
such a lot about the woods, and he knows every bird by
name."

"Well, he can come over another day. As long as you do

not get into any mischief, I don't mind him being with you."

So this was the beginning of many delightful days, and

the holidays slipped by so fast that the little girls were quite
sorry to think that lessons would soon begin again.

One afternoon, Faith was making a frock for one of her

dolls. It had been raining. She was in the schoolroom alone.
Charity and Hope were helping their aunt to make jam in
the kitchen. Suddenly the schoolroom door opened and
Hope dashed in.

"Faith, quick, come! There's a boy at the gate wants to

see you, and he has such a beautiful big grey donkey."

Faith ran out of the house down to the gate. Then her
face lighted up in pleased recognition.

"Why, it's Dan," she cried, "the gipsy boy who spilled his
milk! How is your mother, Dan?"
 "Dead," he said, meeting Faith's gaze very bravely.

Faith was quite shocked.

"Folks never left us alone," the boy said sadly. "They

hustled mother into Infirmary, and then us heard father
were shot dead, and we sold the van, and mother she said
to me:"

"'I'd like that little girl to have Topsy. Take her to her,
and tell her I'm dyin' happy—and don't forget what she
telled me.'"

"We sold our horse—but I've tramped close on twenty-

five mile with Topsy—she'll only want a field to feed in.
Father used her for a small cart, but us got rid of that when
he went to war, and mother's just kept Topsy on; her
couldn't bear parting with her. She follers like a dog."

"Oh, Dan, it's a wonderful present!" cried Faith, with

shining eyes. "But I feel I ought to pay for Topsy, and we
can't do that because we're so poor."

"Mother left her to you. She didn't want her sold. She
wanted her to have a good home."

"Oh, wait a minute! I must tell Aunt Alice. It would be

too glorious if she lets me have her."

Faith dashed back to the house, and Aunt Alice came

out, and had a long talk with the boy. He was going to join
his uncle, who kept another van, but who did not want the
donkey. And after a long talk Aunt Alice said that Faith
might keep Topsy.

She was taken into the orchard, where she began to

munch the grass very contentedly, and Dan was invited into
the cottage. Aunt Alice gave him a cup of cocoa and some
bread and cheese in the kitchen, and thanked him very
much for bringing the donkey to Faith.

As for the little girls, they could hardly contain their joy.
They hung round Topsy watching her every movement, but
when Dan took his leave, Faith walked to the gate with him
and wished him good-bye very gravely.

"We'll take the greatest care of Topsy, and if you ever

pass this way again, you'll come and see her, won't you?
Are you always going to live in a gipsy van? How lovely!"

"I just can't live in a stuffy 'ouse," Dan said.

And then he marched away, and Faith ran back to the

orchard, thinking herself the happiest little girl in the whole
world.

There was great discussion that evening as to how they

should use Topsy.

"I suppose a saddle is very, very expensive?" Faith

asked her aunt. "Of course, we could ride on a sack,
couldn't we?"

"Yes, I'm afraid we can't afford a saddle at present,"

said Aunt Alice cheerfully. "I don't know that a cheap little
cart wouldn't be better for you all. Then Granny could drive
in it."

"Oh, that would be like Charity's story coming true,"

said Faith, with great delight.

"Let us all save up our money," suggested Charity.

 But Hope and Faith said dolefully, "It would take years
and years before we could get enough."

They had to be content with riding Topsy bare-backed.

Hope thought nothing of jumping on her back and having a
gallop. Faith and Charity went more gently with her—and
then one day something wonderful happened.

It was Granny's birthday. The little girls had for some

weeks been busily making their presents for her. Granny
told them she always valued anything that they made her
much more than what they bought for her.

So Charity had been making a big box pincushion out of

an old soapbox. Hope had knitted her a warm pair of cuffs,
and Faith had made her a bag to keep her knitting in, and
had worked in big letters across it "Granny." These were put
on the breakfast table in the morning, and Aunt Alice, who
had bought a book, put her present with them.

Granny was always a delightful receiver of gifts. She

looked so astonished, and delighted, and was so full of
praise and thanks, that her grandchildren had the feeling
that their presents were really wonderful, and "just the
things Granny was wanting!"

They were all talking and kissing and laughing, when

there came a sharp knock at the door. Aunt Alice went to
open it, and found there the groom from the Hall with a
note from Sir George. Whilst Granny was reading it, the
little girls happened to look-out of the window, and there
they saw outside the gate a delightful little basket carriage
with brown cushions and brown wheels. In their excitement,
they flew out of the cottage to inspect it, and in a minute,
Granny came down to the gate with tears in her eyes.

"It's too much!" she murmured. "Too good altogether!"

 And then the children were told that it was a birthday
present for Granny from Sir George and Lady Melville. And
in the little carriage was packed a complete set of brown
harness. Granny let the children see her birthday letter:

"MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,

"My wife and I join in giving you loving and

heartfelt wishes for your birthday. I have not
forgotten the date, and as I have heard of the
addition of a donkey to your household, I
venture to hope that this little basket tub may
be useful to you all. If I see you driving about
our lanes, it will remind me of old times, and I
know that your unselfish heart will rejoice that
your birthday gift can be shared by your little
family. May you be spared to us for many years.
Mary sends her best love.

"One of your old boys,

"GEORGE
MELVILLE."

The excitement was intense now. Aunt Alice felt glad

that they had a stable in which they could house the little
carriage. Of course that same afternoon Topsy was
harnessed, and the children and Granny had a triumphal
drive through the village, Aunt Alice walking after them.
Topsy did not go very fast—but nobody wished her to do so
at present. It was quite enough joy to the children to sit in
state and watch Granny drive.

Faith was perhaps the most happy of all, for was it not
her donkey that was the cause of Granny's wonderful
birthday present?

Before many days had passed, all the little girls had
learnt to drive, and Topsy was so reliable and steady that
they could be trusted to drive about the lanes alone. Charity
came in after her first time as driver in a great state of
excitement:

"I really must write to Mrs. Cox," she said. "I have been
meaning to do it for ever so long. I must tell her what a
splendid time we are having. She always insisted we should
be miserable in the country and be wishing ourselves back
in London."

So she got out her little desk, and wrote the following
letter—Hope and Faith both helped her with it. They had a
great desire to impress Mrs. Cox with their prosperity—

"MY DEAR MRS. COX,

"I told you I would write and tell you how we

got on in the country. We find it a very perfect
place. We have a house, and a stable, and a
field, all to ourselves. There is no next door on
either side. We have apples all over our field,
and grass as long as we like to let it grow. We
have made a great many new friends who ask
us to tea, and play games with us. One of
Faith's friends gave her a beautiful present of a
donkey. She is grey, and she loves bits of
bread. We all ride her when we want to. One of
Granny's friends gave her a carriage on her
birthday, so we drive for miles whenever we
have time. We have a governess and lessons,
but it is holidays now.
 "We have a tent in our field, and we have a
boy friend who comes nearly every day to shoot
and to fish with us. We have all kinds of wild
animals near us. Rabbits and owls and squirrels
and weasels. And there are hundreds of birds
who all sing at once early in the morning. We
have fields where little strawberries grow wild,
and we can pick them without paying anything.
And we never go out for a walk without seeing
somebody we know. We have all kinds of
friends, a lady who paints pictures, a shepherd
who keeps a dog to drive his sheep, a boy who
has a raft of his own, a man who plays he is a
pirate, an old man who lies on a couch, and is
very fond of Faith, a man who has a house full
of books, and his wife who always smiles when
she sees us, and they both have horses and
ponies which Hope likes to ride. And they have
two boys who are very nice, but we like Charlie
best.

"And now, Mrs. Cox, you see how happy we

are in the country, and we hope you are well,
and if you would ever be able to come and see
us we will be very glad to take you round and
show you everything.

"From your affectionate

friends,
"CHARITY, HOPE
and FAITH."

"It doesn't sound as if we are bragging?" said Hope a

little doubtfully after Charity had read this long letter
through with much pride.

"No, for we only tell her what is true," Charity replied.

"I should like you to tell her a little more about

Timothy," said Faith. "Mrs. Cox would be made quite happy
if Timothy talked to her."

"Mrs. Cox would never be happy," said Charity firmly;

"she's one of those people who are happy when they're
unhappy."

"Let me put a postscript," begged Faith.

Charity assented, and Faith sat down at the table and

wrote very carefully as follows:

"My friend Timothy tells me about God the

Comforter Who lives now in the world going
about and drying people's tears. Do you know
Him, Mrs. Cox? He will make the people you tell
us about who are sick of life quite, quite joyful.
I wish you knew Timothy. He does talk me into
being happy, and you would be happy too. But
the Comforter is in London and in your street. I
told Timothy where you lived and he said He
was.

"FAIT
H."

Charity and Hope looked at each other when they had

read what Faith had written.

Charity shrugged her shoulders.

 "Faith will get too good to live soon," she said; "but
she's simply cracked over her old Timothy."

Faith coloured up, but said nothing. She could never

argue, and found it wisest to be silent.

But she was not sorry that she had sent Mrs. Cox that
postscript.
 CHAPTER XII
THE ACCIDENT

THE Hall was closed for two months. Sir George and
Lady Melville had taken their boys to Scotland, so the little
girls were shut up entirely to Charlie for society. They
quarrelled with him occasionally. Once he went off and
stayed away from them for a whole week. But he found he
missed them quite as much as they missed him, and on the
whole they were very good friends.

One afternoon they were all playing in the orchard when

they saw the Pirate ride up to the cottage, tie up his horse
and go inside.

He very often called now; sometimes he brought

Granny fruit; sometimes he said he came to ask Aunt Alice's
advice on some knotty point. He did not always ask to see
the little girls, so they went on with their games. Presently
Faith was called. She ran in and was met by her aunt with a
very grave face.

"Faith, Mr. Cardwell wants you to go back with him. His

father is taken very ill and wants to see you."

Faith looked almost frightened:

"Oh, how dreadful, Aunt Alice! Does he want me to

nurse him?"

Her aunt smiled.

 "No, child, he has a nurse already. Run upstairs and put
on your hat and jacket. And be quick! Don't keep Mr.
Cardwell waiting."

The young man was standing on the doorstep; he

looked at Aunt Alice pleadingly:

"Won't you come?"

She shook her head.

"He does not know me, and if he is conscious, he would

not like to see strangers. Take care of Faith and remember
she's a highly-strung child, and if she can't do him any
good, don't let her stay in his room. Don't give up hope. He
may pull round. I am so sorry for you."

They shook hands, and Faith, running downstairs, was

lifted up in front of Mr. Cardwell's horse, and he rode away
with her.

"Just like a pirate or a bandit," said Hope, looking over

the hedge.

They thought she had been taken off to have tea with
the old man, but they were soon told the truth.

Faith was taken upstairs when she got to the Towers,

and the big bedroom into which she was shown quite awed
her. A nurse in uniform came forward at once. She looked
surprised when she saw Faith.

"Is it this tiny child he wishes to see?" she said, looking

at the young man doubtfully.

He nodded.
 "I think it is. We'll see."

And then Faith was led up to the big bed, and was lifted
up to sit on the edge of it.

Old Mr. Cardwell looked to her, as if he were asleep.

Only his lips moved—and he muttered below his breath.

"Speak to him, Faith. Don't be afraid. He's so fond of

you," whispered the Pirate.

So Faith put her soft little hand on that of the invalid's.

"It's little Miss Moth, please. I've come to see you."

The old man opened his eyes drowsily. Quite a smile

hovered about his lips.

"Little—Miss Moth—come—to say good-bye—" he

murmured; "so glad."

The nurse moved away, and so did the young man.

Then she took up his hand and kissed it.

"Don't go just yet, unless God wants you very much."

He shook his head quickly.

"Say—say—something—to go with me."

Faith looked puzzled. Then her face brightened.

"You mean you want somebody to go up to Heaven with

you?"

He looked at her steadily and earnestly—tried to speak

and could not.
 "The Comforter will go with you, I'm sure," said Faith,
cheerfully. "Timothy says He never leaves people till He puts
them into God's arms. He'll show you the way. Oh, I wish I
could come too!"

Her eyes were shining as she spoke.

"Is that what you mean? Is it the Comforter you want?"

But old Mr. Cardwell lay still, and there was a smile on
his lips. The troubled look had left his face, his head fell
back on the pillows. The nurse came quickly up, and she
and Faith caught one murmured word from the old man's
lips. It was "Jesus."

Then Faith was taken out of the room rather quickly.

She waited downstairs perplexed and troubled, wondering if
her old friend were really going to die, wondering what he
had wanted her to say, and wishing she could go back to
the bedroom again.

Presently the Pirate came down to her.

There was a strange look on his face; Faith thought

there were almost tears in his eyes.

"Do you remember my telling you what a good thing it

would be if my father could believe in the Comforter Whom
you talked to me about one day when we were on the
bridge together?"

"That was before I knew you very well," said Faith,

putting her mind back to the occasion mentioned. "You said
I could come and see him and talk to him. And then I did."

"Yes, you did, and I really believe, little Faith, that my

father was made a happy old man at last. He has been so