Now you see how well off I am! I am sure you would never exchange with me, would you ?" Dino looked quite frightened.
"I did not know that you had no mother," he said, full of pity.

In his mind he saw his own mother, the way she looked at him, so full of love that it always lightened his heart whenever anything troubled him.

And poor Cornelli had to miss all that! Even the stable with the horses, the large garden with all the fruit, about which Martha had told him so much, appeared to him now in a different light.
Full of decision he said: "No indeed, I would not change with you." But a great pity for the motherless child welled up in Dino's heart and he longed to be her protector.

He could understand now why Cornelli looked so strange; he had even noticed it as soon as he had seen her.
There was no mother to fix everything the way it should be.
"We'll try to be friends, Cornelli! But you must push your hair back from your forehead first of all; one can hardly see your eyes.

Nobody wears hair like that.