He looked at her in a puzzled manner. "I don't know," he began, when she tossed her head. "What a stupid boy!" she exclaimed severely. A moment she studied him tentatively through her curls, from the vantage point of her elevated seat. "That's a big fish," she remarked, after the pause. "Do you want it?" he asked quickly, his face brightening. "You can give it to Beppo when he comes," she said, drawing herself up loftily. "He'll be here soon. I've run away from him!" A sudden smile replaced her brief assumption of dignity. "He'll be so angry! He's fat and ugly," more confidentially. "And he's so amusing when he's vexed! But how much do you ask for the fish?" "I didn't mean--to sell it!" "Why not?" "I--don't sell fish." "Don't sell fish!" She looked at the clothes, frayed and worn, the bare muscular throat, the sunburned legs. "You meant to give it to me?" "Yes." The girl laughed. "What a funny boy!" His cheek flushed; from beneath the matted hair, the disconcerted black eyes met the mocking brown ones. "Of course I can't take it for nothing," she explained, "and it is very absurd of you to expect it." "Then," with sudden stubbornness, "I will keep it!" Her glance grew more severe. "Most people speak to me as 'my Lady.' You seem to have forgotten. Or perhaps you have been listening to some of those silly persons who talk about everybody being born equal. I've heard my father, the Governor, speak of them and how he has put some of them in his dungeons. You'd better not talk that way, or he may shut you up in some terrible dark hole beneath the castle." "I'm not afraid!" The black eyes shone. "Then you must be a very wicked boy. It would serve you right if I was to tell." "You can!" "Then I won't! Besides, I'm not a telltale!" She tossed her curls and went on. "I've heard my father say these people who want to be called '_gentilhomme_' and 'monsieur' are low and ignorant; they can't even read and write." Again the red hue mantled the boy's cheek. "I don't believe you can!" she exclaimed shrewdly and clapped her hands. "Can you now?" He did not answer. "'Monsieur'! '_Gentilhomme_'!" she repeated. He stepped closer, his face dark; but whatever reply he might have made was interrupted by the sound of a horse's hoofs and the abrupt appearance, from the direction the child had come, of a fat, irascible-looking man of middle age, dressed in livery. "Oh, here you are, my Lady!" His tone was far from amiable; as he spoke he pulled up his horse with a vicious jerk. "A pretty chase you've led me!" She regarded him indifferently. "If you _will_ stop at the inn, Beppo--" The man's irate glance fell. "Who is this?" "A boy who doesn't want to sell his fish," said the girl merrily. "Oh!" The man's look expressed a quick recognition. "A fine day's work is this--to bandy words with--" Abruptly he raised his whip. "What do you mean, sirrah, by stopping my Lady?"