seem less unpleasant.

"You will go across the lake in the sunlight, and return under the
beautiful stars; and we shall be thinking of you the whole time," she
said to him, when he first mentioned that he should be away on Sunday.

On Saturday evening Rico brought his violin, for Stineli's greatest
pleasure was to hear him play. The lad played lovely tunes one after
another; but they were all sad melodies, and seemed to make him sadder
still, for he looked down at his instrument with a kind of indignant
sorrow, as if it did him a real injury.

Suddenly he pushed it away from him, long before the clock had struck
ten, and said, "I am going away."

Mrs. Menotti tried to detain him; she could not understand what was
amiss. Stineli had looked steadily at him while he was playing. Now she
said, quietly,--

"I will go with you a little way."

"No," cried Silvio; "do not go. Stay here with me."

"Yes, yes, Stineli!" said Rico. "Stay here, and let me go alone."

And, saying this, he looked at his friend exactly as he had looked when
he came away from the schoolmaster's house, and joined Stineli at the
wood-pile, so long ago, saying then, "It is all of no use!"

Stineli went to Silvio's bedside, and said softly, "Be a good boy,