'Pooh! I shall have married a man with a mint of money by the time they let you come back,' said the unkind child, saucily tossing the curls out of her eyes; but through her long lashes her glance rested a moment softly on the ruddy face of Cecco, which had looked down on her so often through the boughs and twigs of the cherry or pear trees of his father's farm, as he threw down fruit into her outstretched and eager little hands where she stood in the grass of the orchard.
She said nothing more tender then, being coy and wayward and hard to please, as became her incipient womanhood; but before she went to bed that night she came close to her father's side and put her hand on his.
'Cecco says he will come back and marry me, babbo,' she said, with a child's directness. Her father stroked her curls.
'That is a joke, dear; his people would never let him marry a little penniless chit like you.'
Lizina shook her head sagely with a little proud smile.
'He will not mind his people. He will do it—if I wish—when he comes back.'
Her father looked at her in amazement; in his eyes she was a little child still.
'Why, baby, you speak like a woman!' he said stupidly. 'I am glad this lad goes away, as he puts such nonsense into your head.'
'But if we both wish, you would not mind, babbo?' she asked, persistent and serious.
'The angels save us! She speaks like a grown woman!' cried her father. 'My poor little dear,' he thought sadly, 'you will never be able to wed anyone. We are poor! so poor! I can never give you even a set of shifts. Who could go to a house so naked—in rags, as one may say? My poor little angel, you must live a maid or go to a husband as beggared as I.'