Roderigo laughed. "You guess right, I do, and now it is my turn to ask questions. Where do you come from?"
"Down there about a mile," Lucia pointed, "in the white cottage by the road."
Roderigo looked at the dark hair and eyes and the gaudily colored dress before him, and shook his head.
"Now perhaps," he admitted, "but you were born in the south where the sun really shines and the sky is blue and not a dull gray, or else where did you come by those eyes and those straight shoulders?"
Lucia looked up at the dazzling sky above her and laughed.
"And I suppose that spot is Napoli," she teased. "Well, you don't guess as well as I do, for I was born here and I have lived here all my life."
"'All my life,'" Roderigo mimicked. "How very long you make that sound, Señorina, and yet you look no older than my little sister."
Lucia drew herself up to her full height and did not deign a direct reply.
"Fourteen years is a long time, Señor," she said gravely, "when you have many worries."
"But you are too young to have many worries," Roderigo protested; "or I beg your pardon, perhaps you have some one up there?" he pointed to the north, where the high peaks of the Alps were visible at no great distance.