feeling of respect for the lad in her mind, that she herself did not
question him; and so it came to pass that, indeed, nobody really knew
how he came to Peschiera. But a story was spread abroad, that everybody
believed, to the effect that he had been left an orphan without
protection in the mountains, and neglected and mishandled, so that at
last he ran away, suffering many things on the long journey until he
reached Peschiera, where the inhabitants were not rough as they are in
the mountains, and that he was glad to remain there with them. Whenever
the landlady told his story, she did not fail to add, "He deserves it,
too,--all the kindness that we show him, and his comfortable home under
our roof."

Now the first "dance Sunday" of the season had come, and such an
enormous crowd of guests assembled in the "Golden Sun," that there
seemed a great doubt if they could all be accommodated there; but
everybody wished to see and to hear the little stranger who played so
wonderfully; and also they who had heard him on the evening of his
arrival were the very first to come, and were impatient for him to play
their song again.

The landlady ran hither and thither in her excitement, and glowed and
glistened in her heat, as if she were herself the "Golden Sun;" and
when she met her husband, she always said triumphantly, "Did not I
tell you so?"

Rico heard "dance music" for the first time played by the three
fiddlers who came to the inn; but he caught the melodies at once, and
had no trouble in playing them, and never forgot them, for they were so
often repeated during the long "dance evening," that they became very
familiar to him.