She was dressed in the costume of the country, and with a neatness and trimness that made her seem almost dainty in the homely dress, while on her head she wore a large, coarse straw hat, over which a bright handkerchief had been thrown, and was tied under her pretty, rounded chin.
She softly approached and leaned over the sleeper, astonishment depicted upon every feature of her young face; and well she might look surprised, for the lovely girl who lay upon that wretched bed of sea-weed was richly and tastefully clad, and bespoke the petted child of luxury and fortune.
She knelt beside her, and, laying her hand lightly upon her shoulder, said, in low, musical Italian:
"Wake, signorina."
The touch aroused the fair sleeper, and she started up affrighted; but, upon seeing the kindly face of a young girl about her own age bending above her, her expression of terror changed to one equally surprised with that of her companion.
"Why is the signorina sleeping here in this miserable place?" the peasant girl asked.
But her companion could not understand or speak Italian, and shook her head, intimating that she did not know what she had said.
To her surprise the girl then addressed her in broken French, repeating her question, and then the fair stranger, appearing to think it best to confide in her, answered, though with some embarrassment:
"I am in great trouble, and I am running away from it. I have walked a long distance, but became so weak and faint I could go no farther, and stumbled in here to rest, and must have fallen asleep from weariness."
A look of pity and sympathy swept over the peasant girl's face.