We marked the winning-post, and made a fair start.  I was certain to win, but I lost on purpose, so as to see what she would ask me to do.  At first she ran with all her might while I reserved my strength, and she was the first to reach the goal.  As she was trying to recover her breath, she thought of sentencing me to a good penance:  she hid herself behind a tree and told me, a minute afterwards, that I had to find her ring.  She had concealed it about her, and that was putting me in possession of all her person.  I thought it was a delightful forfeit, for I could easily see that she had chosen it with intentional mischief; but I felt that I ought not to take too much advantage of her, because her artless confidence required to be encouraged.  We sat on the grass, I visited her pockets, the folds of her stays, of her petticoat; then I looked in her shoes, and even at her garters which were fastened below the knees.  Not finding anything, I kept on my search, and as the ring was about her, I was of course bound to discover it.  My reader has most likely guessed that I had some suspicion of the charming hiding-place in which the young beauty had concealed the ring, but before coming to it I wanted to enjoy myself.  The ring was at last found between the two most beautiful keepers that nature had ever rounded, but I felt such emotion as I drew it out that my hand was trembling.

“What are you trembling for?” she asked.

“Only for joy at having found the ring; you had concealed it so well!  But you owe me a revenge, and this time you shall not beat me.”

“We shall see.”

We began a new race, and seeing that she was not running very fast, I thought I could easily distance her whenever I liked.  I was mistaken.  She had husbanded her strength, and when we had run about two-thirds of the race she suddenly sprang forward at full speed, left me behind, and I saw that I had lost.  I then thought of a trick, the effect of which never fails; I feigned a heavy fall, and I uttered a shriek of pain.  The poor child stopped at once, ran back to me in great fright, and, pitying me, she assisted me to raise myself from the ground.  The moment I was on my feet again, I laughed heartily and, taking a spring forward, I had reached the goal long before her.

The charming runner, thoroughly amazed, said to me,

“Then you did not hurt yourself?”

“No, for I fell purposely.”

“Purposely?  Oh, to deceive me!  I would never have believed you capable of that.  It is not fair to win by fraud; therefore I have not lost the race.”

“Oh! yes, you have, for I reached the goal before you.”

“Trick for trick; confess that you tried to deceive me at the start.”

“But that is fair, and your trick is a very different thing.”

“Yet it has given me the victory, and

     “Vincasi per fortund o per ingano,
     Il vincer sempre fu laudabil cosa"...