Some one tossed a soldo. The boy pounced upon it and extended it toward her.
‘Behold, signorina! This good man is poor, but he is generous. He offers you money to get some wheat.’
Marcia laughed at the play in thorough enjoyment, while Sybert, with an angry light in his eye, seized the boy by the collar and cuffed him soundly.
‘Mr. Sybert,’ she cried, ‘take care; you’ll hurt him!’
‘I mean to hurt him,’ he said grimly, as with a final cuff he dropped him over the side of the bank.
The crowd jeered at his downfall as loudly as they had jeered at his impudence, and the two turned a corner and left them behind.
‘You needn’t have struck him,’ Marcia said. ‘The boy didn’t mean anything beyond being funny. He is one of my best friends; his name is Beppo, and he lives next door to the baker’s shop.’
‘If that is a specimen of your friends,’ Sybert answered dryly, ‘my advice is that you shake their acquaintance.’
‘I don’t mind a little impertinence,’ she said lightly. ‘It’s at least better than whining.’
‘I told you yesterday, Miss Marcia, that I didn’t think you ought to be running about the country alone—I think it even less to-day. It isn’t safe up here in the mountain towns, where the people aren’t used to foreigners.’