Mila, carrying one of her earthen jugs perched lightly on her head, an enormous braid of hair thrice twisted acting as a cushion, noticed that her neighbor's convolvuli were dying of thirst; that would have afforded a pretext for speaking to him if he had been anywhere about; but there was nobody in that retired and sheltered corner. Mila tried, by stretching her arm over the rail, to reach the poor plants and give them a few drops of water. But her arm was too short, and the jug did not reach the box. Children cannot bear the impossible, and when they have undertaken a thing they go on with it at the peril of their lives. How many times have we climbed upon a window to reach a swallow's nest, and counted with the tips of our fingers the little warm eggs on their bed of down! Little Mila spied a stout branch of grapevine which hung along the wall like a bell-rope and was twisted about the rail of the gallery. To climb over the rail and cling to the vine did not seem to her very difficult. In this way she reached the window. But, as she raised her lovely arm to water the convolvuli, a strong hand seized her slender wrist, and a brown face, wearing a smile that displayed two rows of large white teeth, stooped toward hers. Magnani, not wishing to sleep, nor, on the other hand, to seem to be watching what was taking place in the house, as Agatha had ordered, had lain down on his rug to rest his weary limbs. But his mind and his eyes were wide open, and, at every risk, he had seized that stealthy arm whose shadow passed across his face. "Let me go, Magnani," said the girl, more deeply moved by the meeting than by the risk she might be incurring; "you will throw me down! this vine is giving way under me." "Throw you down, my dear child!" replied the young man, passing a powerful arm about her waist. "Unless this arm is cut off, and then the other, you shall never fall!" "Never? that is saying a good deal, for I love to climb, and you won't always be with me." "Happy the man who will be with you always and everywhere, sweet little Mila! But what are you doing here with the birds?" "I saw from my window that this lovely plant was thirsty. See how its pretty head droops and how its leaves are falling. I thought that you were not here, and I was going to give the poor roots something to drink. Here is the jug. You can bring it back to me by and by. I am going back to my work." "Already, Mila?" "Especially as I am very uncomfortable perched up here. I have had enough of it. Let me go, so that I can return the way I came." "No, no, it is too dangerous. The vine is bending, and my arms aren't long enough to hold you till you reach the gallery. Let me lift you in here, Mila, and then you can go out through my chamber." "I can't do that, Magnani; the neighbors would say unkind things of me, if they saw me go into your room either by the window or by the door."