The children waved good-by to their new friend, but she was looking with happy eyes at the beautiful pink bow in one hand and at the little piece of money in the other.
While Molly and May were busy gathering oranges, their mother was opening the well-filled lunch box. The next half-hour Pippo let his horses go as slowly as they liked, while the party in the carriage ate their picnic dinner and enjoyed the lovely scenery. Of course Pippo had his share of the lunch, which he seemed to think was very fine.
By the middle of the afternoon they had reached Amalfi, the largest and probably the oldest fishing village on this rocky coast.
"We will spend the night in that old monastery on the cliff," said the Sunbonnet Babies' father.
"Very well, sir," answered Pippo. "But you will have a good many steps to climb before you get up there."
The steps were very soon found, nearly two hundred of them, and up, up, up the little party climbed.
"How did the monks ever build such a great monastery 'way up here on the mountain side?" exclaimed Molly. "It seems as if it might fall into the water any minute."
"A piece of it did fall into the water a few years ago," said a smiling Italian man who was standing near by. "I saw it with my own eyes. I was not much larger then than you little girls are now."
"Oh, tell us about it, please!" begged the Sunbonnet Babies.