How it was all arranged Piccino did not in the least know. As he stood by the donkey his mother and the neighbors, his father and Beppo and the illustrious lady, all talked together. He knew they were talking of him, because he heard his own name, but he was too little to listen or care. Maria listened to good purpose, however. She was wildly excited and exhilarated. Before the bargain was half concluded she slipped over to Piccino’s side and tried to make him understand. “The signora is going to buy back the donkey,” she said, “and give us money besides, and you are going back in her beautiful carriage to San Remo, to live in her magnificent villa, and be a _signorino_, and have everything you want. You will be dressed like the king’s son, and have servants. You will be as rich as the _forestieri_.” Piccino gave her a rather timid look. He was not a beloved nursery darling, he was only a pretty little animal who was only noticed because he was another mouth to feed; he was not of half as much consequence as the donkey. But the dirty place where he ate and slept was his home, and it gave him a queer feeling to think of tumbling about in a strange house. But Maria was so delighted, and seemed to think he had such luck, and everybody got up a sort of excitement about him, and he did not want the donkey to be sold, and he was too young to realize that he could not come back as often as he liked. And in the end, when the matter was actually settled, he found himself part of a sort of triumphal procession which escorted him back to the place where the carriages were. His mother and Maria and several of the neighbors walked quite proudly along the road with him, and even old Beppo followed at a distance, and the donkey, having been freed from the halter, and taking an interest in her friends, loitered along also, cropping grass as she went. Lady Aileen and Mr. Gordon had gone on before them. When they reached the place where the rest of the party was waiting, Lady Aileen explained the rather remarkable thing she had done, and did so with her usual direct coolness. “I have bought the child with the eyelashes,” she said, “and I am going to take him back to San Remo on the box with the coachman. He is too dirty to come near us until he is washed.” She was a person whom nobody thought of questioning, because she never questioned herself. She simply did what it occurred to her to do, and felt her own wish quite enough reason. She did not care in the least whether people thought her extraordinary or not. That was their affair, and not hers. “You have bought Piccino!” one of her friends exclaimed. “Does that mean you are going to adopt him?”