on the stretch."

"By Bacchus! what a throat she has!"

"And well interjected, Giulio! It runs down like wine, like wine, to the
little ebbing and flowing wave! Away with the glass, my boy! You must
trust to all that's best about you to spy what's within. She makes me
young--young!"

Agostino waved his hand in the form of a salute to her on the last short
ascent. She acknowledged it gracefully; and talking at intervals to Carlo
Ammiani, who footed briskly by her side, she drew by degrees among the
eyes fixed on her, some of which were not gentle; but hers were for the
Chief, at whose feet, when dismounted by Ammiani's solicitous aid, she
would have knelt, had he not seized her by her elbows, and put his lips
to her cheek.

"The signorina Vittoria, gentlemen," said Agostino.

CHAPTER III

The old man had introduced her with much of the pride of a father
displaying some noble child of his for the first time to admiring
friends.

"She is one of us," he pursued; "a daughter of Italy! My daughter also;
is it not so?"

He turned to her as for a confirmation. The signorina pressed his
fingers. She was a little intimidated, and for the moment seemed shy and
girlish. The shade of her broad straw hat partly concealed her vivid
features.

"Now, gentlemen, if you please, the number is complete, and we may
proceed to business," said Agostino, formally but as he conducted the
signorina to place her at the feet of the Chief, she beckoned to her
servant, who was holding the animal she had ridden. He came up to her,
and presented himself in something of a military posture of attention to
her commands. These were that he should take the poor brute to water, and
then lead him back to Baveno, and do duty in waiting upon her mother. The
first injunction was received in a decidedly acquiescent manner. On
hearing the second, which directed his abandonment of his post of
immediate watchfulness over her safety, the man flatly objected with a
"Signorina, no."

He was a handsome bright-eyed fellow, with a soldier's frame and a smile
as broad and beaming as laughter, indicating much of that mixture of
acuteness, and simplicity which is a characteristic of the South, and
means no more than that the extreme vivacity of the blood exceeds at
times that of the brain.

A curious frown of half-amused astonishment hung on the signorina's face.

"When I tell you to go, Beppo!"

At once the man threw out his fingers, accompanied by