Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/68

 beautiful; he was fierce and powerful, but full of sympathy and wisdom; he bent his head, sniffed at her feet, gazed sorrowfully in her eyes, put his nose to the child's cheek, then went with her down the path by which she had climbed to what had been, until the night before, the brigand's home.

She began to descend the mountain, but night drew nigh, and the child, who still slept, was a heavy weight. She stopped at the first cabin she came to, and asked for shelter. The charcoal-burners, who dwelt there, knew the look of the child and the dog, and would not take her in; they were afraid Saturnino's daughter might bring them trouble with the police. Joconda cursed them heartily for cowards.

She made her way with great fatigue, and with strong effort managed to reach the inn where she had slept the first night. Here they did not know the child nor the dog, or did not say that they did.

'Ah! thou hast got the baby for thy step-daughter,' was all the woman of the house said to her; and Joconda answered—

'Ay; but it has ceased to suck; that is a pity.'

Long before this the child had wakened