r persons."

The idea of coming face to face with the dreaded bandits mentioned by
Colomba made an evident impression on the soldiers. The sergeant, still
cursing Corporal Taupin--"that dog of a Frenchman"--gave the order
to retire, and his little party moved toward Pietranera, carrying the
_pilone_ and the cooking-pot; as for the pitcher, its fate was settled
with a kick.

One of the men would have laid hold of Miss Lydia's arm, but Colomba
instantly pushed him away.

"Let none of you dare to lay a finger on her!" she said. "Do you fancy
we want to run away? Come, Lydia, my dear, lean on me, and don't cry
like a baby. We've had an adventure, but it will end all right. In half
an hour we shall be at our supper, and for my part I'm dying to get to
it."

"What will they think of me!" Miss Nevil whispered.

"They'll think you lost your way in the _maquis_, that's all."

"What will the prefect say? Above all, what will my father say?"

"The prefect? You can tell him to mind his own business! Your father?
I should have thought, from the way you and Orso were talking, that you
had something to say to your father."

Miss Nevil squeezed her arm, and answered nothing.

"Doesn't my brother deserve to be loved?" whispered Colomba in her ear.
"Don't you love him a little?"

"Oh, Colomba!" answered Miss Nevil, smiling in spite of her blushes,
"you've betrayed me! And I trusted you so!"

Colomba slipped her arm round her, and kissed her forehead.

"Little sister," she whispered very low, "will you forgive me?"

"Why, I suppose I must, my masterful sister," answered Lydia, as she
kissed her back.

The prefect and the public prosecutor were staying with the
deputy-mayor, and the colonel, who was very uneasy about his daughter,
was paying them his twentieth call, to ask if they had heard of her,
when a rifleman, whom the sergeant had sent on in advance, arrived with
the full story of the great fight with the brigands--a fight in which
nobody had been either killed or wounded, but which had resulted in
the capture of a cooking-pot, a _pilone_, and two girls, whom the man
described as the mistresses, or the spies, of the two bandits.

Thus heralded, the two prisoners appeared, surrounded by their armed
escort.

My readers will imagine Colomba's radiant face, her companion's
confusion, the prefect's surprise, the colonel's astonishment and joy.
The public prosecutor permitted himself the mischievous entertainment
of ob