He ran and ran, and at every yard he saw something that he knew, and felt that he loved it because he knew it. The late moon shone down on him, a little white figure running eagerly; the trees rustled as he passed. “Maria! Maria!” he said, but he did not say it loud, but softly. And at last he had reached it—his own dear hovel which he seemed to have left a thousand years ago. He stood and beat on the door with his little soft fists. “Maria! Maria!” he said, “open the door! I have come home. Let me in!” But inside they slept the heavy sleep of wornout peasants and of tired childhood. They could not have heard him even if he had been able to make more noise. His child hands could make very little. They slept so heavily that he could hear them. And there he stood in the moonlight, thumping on the old door, unanswered. And the dog stood by him, wagging his tail and looking up at him with such a companionable air that he could not feel he was alone, and actually did not begin to cry. At all events he had got home, and was among the hills again, with the trees growing close around him, and Maria and the donkey. His whimper lost itself in a sudden sense of relief. Yes, there was the donkey in her stable, and the door would keep nobody out. “The donkey will let us in,” he said to the dog. “Let us go in there.” And a few moments later the donkey was roused from her sleep by something soft stumbling against her as she lay down, and, being a donkey with a memory, she realized that a familiar friend had come to her at this untimely hour, and she knew the little voice that spoke, and the little body which cuddled against her side as if she were a pillow, and being also affectionate and maternal, she did not resent the intrusion by any unfriendly moving. And in the early, early morning, when Rita opened the stable door and let in a shaft of the gold sunlight which was lighting up the darkness of the olive-trees, the first thing it shone upon was the beautiful, tired little travel-stained figure of Piccino, who lay fast asleep against the donkey’s gray side, his arms around her neck, and the dog’s body pressed close and lovingly against his own. * * * * * Upon the whole, Lady Aileen was not very much surprised and not at all disturbed when it was found that he was gone. She sent some one to Ceriani, and when the news was brought back to her that he was discovered there, she only laughed a little. In fact, she had found it too tiresome an amusement to undertake the management of a lovely little wild animal, to whom civilization only represented horror and dismay. She sent Rita some money—not too much, but enough to make her feel quite rich for a few weeks. For the rest, she only remembered Piccino as part of an anecdote it was rather amusing to tell to those of her friends in London who were entertained by anecdotes.