Silvio; and to-morrow I will tell you the very prettiest and drollest
story about Peterli; but now do not make a noise."

Silvio really did keep quiet, and Stineli went after Rico. When they
reached the hedge, Rico turned about, and pointed towards the brightly
lighted window that looked so pleasant and friendly from the garden, and
said, "Go back there, Stineli. You belong there, and there you are at
home; but I belong in the streets. I am a homeless fellow, and shall
always be so: now let me go away."

"No, no; I will not let you go in this mood, Rico. Where do you
mean to go?"

"To the lake," said the young man; and went towards the bridge. As they
stood together on the little mound, they were silent for a while,
listening to the murmur of the waves. At last, Rico said,--

"Do you understand, if you were not here, I would go away at once, far
away?--but I do not know where I should go. Wherever I go, I shall be
homeless, and have to be fiddling forever in public-houses where they
are noisy, just as if they had lost their senses, and I must always
sleep in a room in which I dislike to be; but you belong to them there
in that beautiful house, and I do not belong anywhere. And I tell you,
Stineli, when I look down there, I think if my mother had only cast me
to the waves before she died, then I should not have been this
homeless wanderer."

With ever-increasing trouble, Stineli listened to these words of her
friend; but when he pronounced these last, she became really alarmed,
and said hastily, "O Rico! you ought not to say such things. I am sure