nd bring them home to her at last. To the tender love of
that Father, and to the protection of the holy saints, she commended
them, kissed them and blessed them, and went softly to sleep, to awake
in Heaven.

After the burial of their mother, Giuseppe and Lucia found themselves
nearly penniless. They had no friends except among the poor, so they
must help themselves, or suffer extreme poverty. The boy possessed a
great deal of musical talent, and played well upon several instruments.
He resolved that somehow he would make this talent serve for the
support of himself and his little sister. He could have enlisted as a
drummer, but he regarded the Austrians, who then held that part of
Italy, as the cruel oppressors of his country. He had an especial
horror of them, from the fact that his father had been shot several
years before, for joining an unsuccessful rising against them in Milan.

At last, Giuseppe Benedetti fixed upon a calling. With the small sum
of money which a sale of the cottage furniture brought he purchased a
set of puppets, or _marionettes_,--quaint little figures, that would
dance very nimbly if not gracefully to the notes of the pipes, which he
played like a master. This is a rather rude, but quite an inspiring
musical instrument, belonging mostly to the mountain regions of Italy.
Those who play it are called _pifferari_, or pipers.

When all was ready, Giuseppe and Lucia took an affectionate leave of
their kind neighbors, and set bravely out on their travels, to seek
their fortune. They tramped from town to town, sometimes getting very
weary and discouraged, but often having very pleasant times together,
and never suffering from actual want. One day they found themselves
within a few hours' walk of Mancini, the little village in which their
mother had died, and concluded to revisit it. At noon, they stopped to
rest in an olive-grove by the wayside. After eating their simple
dinner of brown bread and fresh figs, and drinking from a cool spring
near by, Lucia, who never tired of the wonderful performances of the
marionettes, asked her brother to play for them, and sat watching the
dancing of the miniature men and women with true childish delight.

In the midst of their enjoyment, they were startled by the tramp of
horses and men coming up the road. Giuseppe ran forwards, and looked
down on a band of some two hundred Italian soldiers, led by a
noble-looking man, mounted on a fiery white horse