“Yes and no,” Lucia teased.  “I did not know his name, or what he looked like, but I knew there was a soldier of the pennies somewhere.”

“But tell me,” Maria begged.  “I am so curious.”

Lucia laughed.  “Very well, it is a queer thing.  Listen.  Do you remember how for a few days about a week before this battle, I only brought two pails of milk to your stall in the morning?”

Maria nodded.

“Well, the rest of the milk went to Captain Riccardi, but I did not know it.  You see, one day Garibaldi ran away and went far up into the hills.  I think the guns frightened her, and of course I went after her.  I found her on a little plateau quite far up, and because I was tired I sat down to rest, keeping tight hold of her, you may be sure.  I was dreaming and thinking, and oh, a long way off, when suddenly I heard a voice above me.  I looked up; my, but I was frightened, I can tell you, but I could see no one.  The voice said:  ’Little goat herder, will you give me a drink of milk?’”

Lucia stopped.

“Go on!” Maria exclaimed.  “What did you do?”

“I am ashamed to say,” Lucia replied, “I was so frightened that I ran back down the mountain as if the evil spirit were after me, and I did not stop until I was safe at home.  Then I began to think.  Of course, at first I had thought only of an Austrian, but when I stopped to think, I knew that Austrians don’t speak such Italian—­low and very 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.