Baby as he was, Piccino began to understand. His father had sold the donkey, and it would be taken away. He lifted up his voice in a wail of bitter lamentation, and breaking away from Maria ran to the donkey and clung round her front leg, rubbing his cheek wofully against her gray shoulder. For an hour or so they all wept and lamented while their mother alternately wept and raved. She abused her husband and the old man who had bought the donkey, by turns. Stray neighbors dropped in and helped her. They all agreed that old Beppo was a usurer and a thief, who had somehow got the better of Annibale, who was also a drunken, shameless brute. Old Beppo was so overwhelmed by the storm of hard words and bad names raging about him that he actually was stunned into allowing that the donkey should remain where she was for two days, that she might finish some work her mistress had promised to do with her aid. And he went away grumbling, with his piece of rope over his arm. There was nothing to eat in the house, and if there had been, the mother was too prostrate with grief and rage to have prepared anything like a meal. And so it seemed a great piece of good luck when dirty little Filippo burst upon them with the news that three grand carriages full of illustrious-looking _forestieri_ and inviting hampers were unloading themselves at a certain turn of the road, where the grass was thick and the trees big and close together. “Come!” said Maria, catching at Piccino’s hand. She gave him a look over. His crying had left a flush in his soft cheeks and a little pathetic curve on his baby mouth, which was always like a tiny vermilion bow. His hat, with the tulips tumbling round it, was set on the back of his head, and the red and yellow things made his eyes look bigger and lovelier than ever by contrast. In these respects Maria saw that he was good for more cakes and _soldi_ than ever. And it would never have occurred to her that tears and rubbing against the donkey had left him dirtier than ever. In Maria’s world nobody troubled themselves about dirt. Washing one’s self amounted almost to a religious ceremony. But ah! that little love of a Piccino was dirty—as dirty as he was soft and dimpled and rich-colored and beautiful! Near the place where the pleasure-seekers had spread their feast upon the grass there was a low, rough, stone wall at the side of the road. [Illustration: “PICCINO CLUNG TO THE DONKEY, RUBBING HIS CHEEK WOFULLY AGAINST HER GRAY SHOULDER”] When the servants had spread the bright rugs and cushions upon the ground the party sat down in little groups. No sooner had they done this than one of the ladies looked up and broke into a little laugh. “Look there!” she said, nodding in the direction of the low wall, which was only a few yards from them.