soft this was, as my mother used to speak, and your Roderigo. Well,
then of course, I wanted to die of shame; I had run away from one of
the soldiers. I thought about it all night, and I could not sleep.
Just before dawn I got up very softly and went down to the shed. I
filled two pails half-full and carried them up to the same place.

"I could not see or hear any one, but I left them, and that afternoon I
went back to see if it had been taken away. There were the empty
pails, and beside them a strip of paper with four pennies wrapped up
inside.

"After that, I took the milk up every day to the plateau, but I never
saw or heard the soldier again. Sometimes he would write me a little
note and say 'thank you,' to me, but always there was the money. So
that is why I called him my soldier of the pennies; do you see?"

"Oh, yes, how splendid!" Maria was delighted. "And to think it was
Captain Riccardi all the time. No wonder now that he talks sometimes
in his sleep of the little goat-herder and her flowered dress. He was
an observer, Roderigo told me. That is a very important thing to be,
and he was hidden high up in a tree. That is why you did not see him."

Lucia thought of the telephone.

"I know now, of course, for I saw him climb up it and talk over the
wire to the soldiers miles away," she exclaimed. "But how could I
think to look in a tree for a soldier?" she laughed.

A bell tinkled, and Maria sprang up.