"Oh, I know!" cried the Signorina, with a sudden light in her
face. "Bertuccio is your son!"

"Si, si, si, Signorina!" exclaimed Giacomo and Assunta together,
ushering her into the dining-room.

"It is the blessed saints who have managed it," added Assunta
devoutly. "A wreath of flowers from Rome, all gauze and
spangles, will I lay at the shrine of our Lady, and there shall
be a long red ribbon to say my thanks in letters of gold."

The hope of the house was presented to the Signorina after
breakfast. He was a broad-shouldered, round-headed offshoot of
Italian soil, with honest brown eyes like those of both father
and mother. It was a face to be trusted, Daphne knew, and when,
recovering from the embarrassment caused by his parents' pride in
him, he blurted out the fact that he had already been to the
village that morning to find a little donkey for the Signorina's
wider journeyings, the girl welcomed the plan with delight.
Grinning with pride Bertuccio disappeared among the stables, and
presently returned, leading an asinetto. It was a little,
dun-colored thing, wearing a red-tasseled bridle and a small
sheepskin saddle with red girth, but all the gay trappings could
not soften the old primeval sadness of the donkey's face, under
his long, questioning ears. So Daphne won palfrey and
cavalier.

In the succeeding days the two jogged for hours together over the
mountain roads. Now they followed some grassy path climbing
gently upward to the site of a buried town, where only mound and