The Captain looked at her gravely.  Then he took her hand and patted it gently.

“You are a brave and true little Italian,” he said, “and I can never hope to pay you for what you have done.  You will have to look for your reward in your own heart.  It ought to be a very happy and contented heart, I should think.”

Lucia’s cheeks flushed with pride.

“Oh, it is, Captain Riccardi,” she said, “it is indeed, and I am quite content.  If you heard what I said just now about the dream, you must not think that I don’t want to go back to the cottage—­I do, and I want so much to see my Beppino and Nana again—­only—­”

“Tell me about that ‘only’ Lucia,” the Captain said gently.  “That is what I want to hear, and then perhaps I will have something to tell you.”

“Oh, it is nothing but silliness,” Lucia protested, “how can it matter?”

“Never mind, tell me,” the Captain insisted.

“But you will laugh.  What do big men know of fairy stories!”

“Lots, sometimes—­I believe in fairies.”

Lucia looked into the smiling eyes incredulously, “You, a soldier!”

“Of course, haven’t I told you that I thought you were a fairy when I first saw you, and by the Saints, I did too.  Do you know, I first discovered you way down in the valley.  You were with your goats.  I looked at you through my glass, and your pretty flowered dress, and the kerchief you wore over your hair, made me think of the little girls at home.”

“Ah, then you come from the south, too?” Lucia laughed.  “I knew it.”

“How do you?” the Captain demanded.

Lucia shook her head sadly.

“No, my mother came from Napoli.  When I was a little girl she used to tell me all about the sunshine and the flowers, and the blue water in the bay, and old grandfather Vesuvius always frowning and puffing in the distance.  Oh, I tell you I feel sometimes as if I had been there, but, of course, that is silly,” she broke off, laughing, “for I have never been away from Cellino.”

“Would you like to go away to the south and live there?” Captain Riccardi asked slowly.

“Oh, yes, of course.  I dream sometimes that I am a princess and that a wicked fairy has turned me into a goat-herder and forced me to live here where it is so very cold sometimes, and then I wish hard for a good fairy to come and set me free, and take me on a magic carpet away to a garden full of flowers.  There,” she smiled shyly, “that is what I was thinking of out loud when you came a minute ago.”

The Captain did not laugh, except with his eyes.  His voice was very grave as he asked.

“Wouldn’t a prince or a fairy godfather do just as well?”

“Oh, yes, even better,” Lucia replied seriously.

“Well then, what would you say if I told you that I am a fairy godfather, and that I can spirit you to a garden even nicer than this, where it is always summer?”