can't hear," she grumbled good-naturedly.

"Oh, yes a fine secret!" Lucia replied laughing, as she picked up the greatest share of the burden and led the way.

Maria and her mother lived in an old stone house that had once been a palace. It was hardly palatial now, but it was very picturesque. It housed five families besides the Rudinis, and in spite of the many lines of wash that floated from its windows, it still retained enough of its old grandeur to be an interesting spot to the occasional tourist who visited Cellino. Maria and her mother were very proud of this distinction. It made up somewhat for the loss of their house, which they had been forced to leave, when six months before Maria's two brothers had gone off to fight.

The new quarters were not far from the market place and they soon reached them. Their rooms were on the ground floor, and Lucia and Maria made haste to drop what they were carrying and start off again at a much slower pace for the gate. The sun was low in the west. It was setting in a bank of golden clouds over the little river that ran parallel with the west wall of the town. Lucia stopped to look at it.

"Rain to-morrow, I suppose, by the look of those clouds," she said, a real pucker of concern between her eyes.

"And no wonder," Maria agreed, "with all this banging of guns one would think it would rain all the time out of pity for so much suffering."

"Now, Maria, don't begin to cry," Lucia protested not unkindly. "It will do you no good, and it will only make things look worse than they really are."

"How can they?" Maria demanded, with more show of resentment than was usual with her quiet acceptance of things. "Only this morning I sold milk to such a sweet boy from the south. He had great sad, brown eyes like yours, and he was very young and unhappy. His father and brother were both killed, and now he is going."

"But perhaps he won't be killed," Lucia said practically. "Anyway, he will get a chance to do a little killing first, and surely that is enough to satisfy any one, or ought to be."

"Oh, Lucia you are cruel sometimes," Maria protested. "Who wants to kill? Surely not these happy boys, and they don't want to be killed either. It is all too terrible to think about, and you are an unnatural girl to talk as you do. Why, I don't believe you have cried once since the war began, even when the poor wounded were brought here, and we saw their faces all shot away."

Maria's anger rose as she talked, and Lucia listened curiously. It was something new for Maria to take her to task. Her mind flew back over the past year, and she saw herself with her face buried in the grass and her hands clenched, and remembered her furious anger and her vows of vengeance, but she had to admit that her cousin was right; she had shed no tears.

"We are not made the same way, I guess," she replied ruefully to Maria's charges. "I cannot cry, I can only hate."

"But hate won't do any good," Maria protested feebly.

"It will do more than tears," Lucia replied shortly.

They continued their walk in silence, now and then nodding to an acquaintance or bowing respectfully to the Sisters of Charity who lived at the big Convent just outside the Porto Romano, and who came to town to take care of the sick and cheer the broken-hearted. When they reached the north gate Lucia stopped. Roderigo was still on duty, but this time he did not pause in his brisk walk up and down to chat. He never even glanced in the girls' direction.

Maria nodded towards him and whispered excitedly, "That is the boy I was just now speaking of. Doesn't he look sad?"

"No, he looks quite cross," Lucia replied in a voice loud enough to be overheard, and her eyes sparkled with mischief as she added, "I wonder if he will let me through the gate to get home."

"May I pass, sir, please? I live a little beyond the wall, but I am not a spy," she said with mock humility.

Roderigo blushed. A soldier does not like to be made fun of, particularly when some one else is present.

"Pass," he said gruffly.

Lucia laughed provokingly.

"Good night, Maria," she said as she kissed her cousin. "Sweet dreams. I may not be in very early in the morning, there is so much to do, you know, but I will bring as much milk as possible," she finished. Then without even a glance at Roderigo she walked through the gate and down the wall.

When she had walked for a little distance she looked back. Maria and the soldier were in earnest conversation. Maria in her timid way was apologizing for her cousin's rudeness, and Roderigo was beginning to have doubts of the superiority of Southern beauty over the Northern, particularly when a gentle spirit was added to the charm of the latter. Lucia did not know she was the subject of their talk. She shrugged her shoulders and turned her thoughts to a more important question that was puzzling her. It was, how to slip out of the house the next morning without disturbing the already suspicious Beppi.

CHAPTER III

BEFORE DAYBREAK

Lucia found Beppi asleep in the grass, curled up in the same position that he had been in earlier in the day. One of his little hands had tight hold of the precious pink bag, and a sticky smile of blissful content turned up the corners of his full red lips.

Lucia looked at him and shook her head. There might have been twenty-seven instead of seven years between them, for there was something protective in her expression.

"Little lazy bones, asleep again!" she said, shaking him gently.

Beppi stirred, one eye opened, and then with a sudden rush of memory he sat up and began excitedly: "I just this minute fell asleep, just this very second, truly, Lucia! I have watched the goats, oh, so carefully, and they have not stirred,—see there they are only a little farther away than when you left. I only closed my eyes because I thought I might go on with that nice dream, but I didn't," he finished sorrowfully.

Lucia laughed.

"Look at the sun," she pointed. "It is late, you should have driven the goats home long ago. But I knew you would go to asleep after you ate up all the candy, such a naughty little brother that you are. What kind of a soldier would you make, I'd like to know, dreaming every few minutes? Come along, get up,—we must hurry back to Nana, or she will be worried."

She took his hand and together they drove the goats before them to the cottage.

[Illustration: "Together they drove the goats before them."]

Nana Rudini was waiting for them at the door. She was a little, wrinkled-up, old woman with bright blue eyes and thin gray hair. She spoke very seldom and always in a high querulous voice.

"So you're back at last, are you?" she greeted, when the children were within hearing. "Supper's been on the stove for too long. What kept you?"

"Very busy day, Nana," Lucia spoke in much the same tone she had used towards Beppi. "I had to help Aunt and Maria at market. More troops have arrived and the streets are crowded."

"Oh, sister, you never told me that!" Beppi said accusingly. "Where are they from?"

"The south mostly," Lucia replied, "fine soldiers they are too, if you can judge by their looks."

"Which you can't," old Nana interrupted shortly. "Stop your talking and come in to supper."

"Right away," Lucia promised, and hurried off to shut up her goats in the small, half-tumbled-down shack at the back of the cottage.

Supper at the Rudinis consisted of boiled spaghetti, black bread and cheese, with a cup full of milk apiece. It was not a very tempting meal, but Lucia was hungry and ate with a hearty appetite.

After the three bowls