His musical faculty is a decided thing, and he plays on the piano quite remarkably for his age (through his father's instruction) while I am writing this.

He is reading aloud to me an Italian translation of 'Monte Cristo,' and with a dramatic intelligence which would strike you, as it does perhaps, that I should select such a book for a child of nine years old to read at all.

It's rather young to be acclimated to French novels, is it not?
But the difficulty of getting Italian books is great, and there's a good deal in the early part of 'Monte Cristo,' the prison part, very attractive.

His voice was full of sobs when poor Dantes was consigned to the Chateau d'If.

"Do you mean to say, mama, that _that boy_ is to stay there all his life ?" He made me tell him 'to make him happy,' as he said.
For the rest he reads French and German, and we shall have to begin Latin in another year I suppose.