“Si, signorina.”

“How long?”

Beppo considered. Someone, clearly, must vouch for the man’s respectability. This was not in the lesson that had been taught him, but he determined to branch out for himself.

“He is my father, signorina.”

“Really! He looks young to be your father—have you any brothers and sisters, Beppo?”

“I have four brothers, signorina, and five sisters.” He fell back upon the truth with relief.

“Davvero!”

 The signorina smiled upon him, a smile of such heavenly sweetness that he instantly joined the already crowded ranks of her admirers. She drew from her pocket a handful of coppers and dropped them into his grimy little palm.

“Here, Beppo, are some soldi for the brothers and sisters. I hope that you will be good and obedient and always tell me the truth.”

 CHAPTER V

After some delay—owing to Tony’s inability to balance the chafing-dish on Cristoforo Colombo’s back—they filed from the gateway, an imposing cavalcade. The ladies were on foot, loftily oblivious to the fact that three empty saddles awaited their pleasure. Constance, a gesticulating officer at either hand, was vivaciously talking Italian, while Tony, trudging behind, listened with a somber light in his eye. She now and then cast a casual glance over her shoulder, and as she caught sight of his gloomy face the animation of her Italian redoubled. The situation held for her mischief-loving soul undreamed-of possibilities; and though she ostensibly occupied herself with the officers, she by no means neglected the donkey-man.

A

A

 During the first few miles of the journey he earned his four francs. Twice he reshifted the pack because Constance thought it insecure (it was a disgracefully unprofessional pack; most guides would have blushed at the making of it); once he retraced their path some two hundred yards in search of a veil she thought she had dropped—it turned out that she had had it in her pocket all of the time. He chased Fidilini over half the mountainside while the others were resting, and he carried the chafing-dish for a couple 

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