Lucia Rudini | Page 5

quiet acceptance of things. "Only this morning I sold milk to such a sweet boy from the south. He had great sad, brown eyes like yours, and he was very young and unhappy. His father and brother were both killed, and now he is going."
"But perhaps he won't be killed," Lucia said practically. "Anyway, he will get a chance to do a little killing first, and surely that is enough to satisfy any one, or ought to be."
"Oh, Lucia you are cruel sometimes," Maria protested. "Who wants to kill? Surely not these happy boys, and they don't want to be killed either. It is all too terrible to think about, and you are an unnatural girl to talk as you do. Why, I don't believe you have cried once since the war began, even when the poor wounded were brought here, and we saw their faces all shot away."
Maria's anger rose as she talked, and Lucia listened curiously. It was something new for Maria to take her to task. Her mind flew back over the past year, and she saw herself with her face buried in the grass and her hands clenched, and remembered her furious anger and her vows of vengeance, but she had to admit that her cousin was right; she had shed no tears.
"We are not made the same way, I guess," she replied ruefully to Maria's charges. "I cannot cry, I can only hate."
"But hate won't do any good," Maria protested feebly.
"It will do more than tears," Lucia replied shortly.
They continued their walk in silence, now and then nodding to an acquaintance or bowing respectfully to the Sisters of Charity who lived at the big Convent just outside the Porto Romano, and who came to town to take care of the sick and cheer the broken-hearted. When they reached the north gate Lucia stopped. Roderigo was still on duty, but this time he did not pause in his brisk walk up and down to chat. He never even glanced in the girls' direction.
Maria nodded towards him and whispered excitedly, "That is the boy I was just now speaking of. Doesn't he look sad?"
"No, he looks quite cross," Lucia replied in a voice loud enough to be overheard, and her eyes sparkled with mischief as she added, "I wonder if he will let me through the gate to get home."
"May I pass, sir, please? I live a little beyond the wall, but I am not a spy," she said with mock humility.
Roderigo blushed. A soldier does not like to be made fun of, particularly when some one else is present.
"Pass," he said gruffly.
Lucia laughed provokingly.
"Good night, Maria," she said as she kissed her cousin. "Sweet dreams. I may not be in very early in the morning, there is so much to do, you know, but I will bring as much milk as possible," she finished. Then without even a glance at Roderigo she walked through the gate and down the wall.
When she had walked for a little distance she looked back. Maria and the soldier were in earnest conversation. Maria in her timid way was apologizing for her cousin's rudeness, and Roderigo was beginning to have doubts of the superiority of Southern beauty over the Northern, particularly when a gentle spirit was added to the charm of the latter. Lucia did not know she was the subject of their talk. She shrugged her shoulders and turned her thoughts to a more important question that was puzzling her. It was, how to slip out of the house the next morning without disturbing the already suspicious Beppi.
CHAPTER III
BEFORE DAYBREAK
Lucia found Beppi asleep in the grass, curled up in the same position that he had been in earlier in the day. One of his little hands had tight hold of the precious pink bag, and a sticky smile of blissful content turned up the corners of his full red lips.
Lucia looked at him and shook her head. There might have been twenty-seven instead of seven years between them, for there was something protective in her expression.
"Little lazy bones, asleep again!" she said, shaking him gently.
Beppi stirred, one eye opened, and then with a sudden rush of memory he sat up and began excitedly: "I just this minute fell asleep, just this very second, truly, Lucia! I have watched the goats, oh, so carefully, and they have not stirred,--see there they are only a little farther away than when you left. I only closed my eyes because I thought I might go on with that nice dream, but I didn't," he finished sorrowfully.
Lucia laughed.
"Look at the sun," she pointed. "It is late, you should have driven the goats home long ago. But I knew you would go to asleep after you ate up all the candy, such a naughty little brother