Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard
dence of the Viola family, but reverted to what he called "our great Nostromo."
"What I wanted to tell you is this: Our great Nostromo did not seem to take much notice of the old man and the children for some years. It's true, too, that he was away on his coasting voyages certainly ten months out of the twelve. He was making his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. He seems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected. He is a man full of resource, full of confidence in himself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I remember being in Mitchell's office one day, when he came in with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere. He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said, looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, and was glad to see on his return that a light-house was being built on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated. Mitchell explained that it was the O.S.N. Company who was building it for the convenience of the mail service, on his own advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that it was excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his mustaches and looking all round the cornice of the room before he proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper of that light."
"I heard of this. I was consulted at the time," Mrs. Gould said. "I doubted whether it would be good for these girls to be shut up on that island as if in a prison."
"The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino's humor. As to Linda, any place was lovely and de-
574
