et again. They would doubtless meet again. But it would all be
different. He would be a serious married man, who could no longer frolic
as if he were still a boy like Gaspare. This was the last day of his
intimate friendship with Maddalena.

That seemed to him very strange. He had become accustomed to her society,
to her naive curiosity, her girlish, simple gayety, so accustomed to it
all that he could not imagine life without it, could scarcely realize
what life had been before he knew Maddalena. It seemed to him that he
must have always known Maddalena. And she--what did she feel about that?

"Maddalena!" he said.

"Si, signore."

She turned her head and glanced at him, smiling, as if she were sure of
hearing something pleasant. To-day, in her pretty festa dress, she looked
intended for happiness. Everything about her conveyed the suggestion that
she was expectant of joy. The expression in her eyes was a summons to the
world to be very kind and good to her, to give her only pleasant things,
things that could not harm her.

"Maddalena, do you feel as if you had known me long?"

She nodded her head.

"Si, signore."

"How long?"

She spread out one hand with the fingers held apart.

"Oh, signore--but always! I feel as if I had known you always."

"And yet it's only a few days."

"Si, signore."

She acquiesced calmly. The problem did not seem to puzzle her, the
problem of this feeling so ill-founded. It was so. Very well, then--so it
was.

"And," he went on, "do you feel as if you would always know me?"

"Si, signore. Of course."

"But I shall go away, I am going away."

For a moment her face clouded. But the influence of joy was very strong
upon her to-day, and the cloud passed.

"But you will come back, signorino. You will always come back."

"How do you know that?"

A pretty slyness crept into her face, showed in the curve of the young
lips, in the expression of the young eyes.

"Because you like to be here, because you like the Siciliani. Isn't it
true?"

"Yes," he said, almost passionately. "It's true! Ah, Maddalena--"

But at this moment a group of people from Marechiaro suddenly appeared
upon the road beside them, having descended from the village by a
mountain-path. There were exclamations, salutations. Maddalena's gown was
carefully examined by the women of the party. The men exchanged
compliments with Maurice. Then Salvatore and Gaspare, seeing friends,
came galloping up, shouting,