g in a
promise of an inheritance; but the aunt had died a few months later, run
over by an omnibus, without leaving a centesimo; and then she too had
had recourse to the consul, who had shipped her to Italy. Both had been
recommended to the care of the Italian sailor.--"So," concluded the
little maid, "my father and mother thought that I would return rich, and
instead I am returning poor. But they will love me all the same. And so
will my brothers. I have four, all small. I am the oldest at home. I
dress them. They will be greatly delighted to see me. They will come in
on tiptoe--The sea is ugly!"

Then she asked the boy: "And are you going to stay with your relatives?"

"Yes--if they want me."

"Do not they love you?"

"I don't know."

"I shall be thirteen at Christmas," said the girl.

Then they began to talk about the sea, and the people on board around
them. They remained near each other all day, exchanging a few words now
and then. The passengers thought them brother and sister. The girl
knitted at a stocking, the boy meditated, the sea continued to grow
rougher. At night, as they parted to go to bed, the girl said to Mario,
"Sleep well."

"No one will sleep well, my poor children!" exclaimed the Italian sailor
as he ran past, in answer to a call from the captain. The boy was on the
point of replying with a "good night" to his little friend, when an
unexpected dash of water dealt him a violent blow, and flung him against
a seat.

"My dear, you are bleeding!" cried the girl, flinging herself upon him.
The passengers who were making their escape below, paid no heed to them.
The child knelt down beside Mario, who had been stunned by the blow,
wiped the blood from his brow, and pulling the red kerchief from her
hair, she bound it about his head, then pressed his head to her breast
in order to knot the ends, and thus received a spot of blood on her
yellow bodice just above the girdle. Mario shook himself and rose:

"Are you better?" asked the girl.

"I no longer feel it," he replied.

"Sleep well," said Giulietta.

"Good night," responded Mario. And they descended two neighboring sets
of steps to their dormitories.

The sailor's prediction proved correct. Before they could get to sleep,
a frightful tempest had broken loose. It was like the sudden onslaught
of furious great horses, which in the course of a few minutes split one
mast, and carried away three boats which were suspended to the falls,
and fo