It was only then that the strange words seemed fully to rouse him out of his own thoughts. "Indeed, fair maid," he answered, "he who for seven years has nothing else to do but think of one fair girl's face, must end at last in knowing it by heart." "Yes," she said meditatively, "that is it; that is just what you used to say, that you would think of nothing else." "Seven years ago? I was a gay and merry youth seven years ago. And you seriously believed that?" She nodded gravely three times. "Why should I not believe it? My own experience shows me that you were right." "Child," he said, with a good-natured look that suited his decided features, "I am very sorry for that. I suppose seven years ago I thought all women knew that the tender speeches of a man were worth about as much as counters in a game, which certainly can be exchanged for true gold, if expressly sealed and arranged so. How much I thought of all you women seven years ago! Now, I must honestly confess, I seldom think of you at all. Dear child, there is so much to think of far more important." She was silent, as though she did not understand it all, and was quietly waiting till he should say something that really concerned her. After a pause, he said: "It seems to dawn upon me now that I have once before wandered through this part of the mountain. I might possibly have recognised the village and this house, if it had not been for the fog. Yes, indeed, it was certainly seven years ago that the doctor ordered me off to the mountains, and I, like a fool, used to rush up and down the steepest paths." "I knew it," she said, and a touching gleam of joy spread over her face. "I knew well you could not have forgotten it. Why, Fuoco, the dog, has not forgotten it and his old hatred of you in those bygone days--nor I, my old love." She said this with so much firmness and so cheerfully, that he looked up at her, more and more astonished. "I can remember now," he said, "there was a girl whom I met once on the summit of the Apennines, and she took me home to her parents' house. Otherwise, I should have been obliged to spend the night on the cliffs. I remember, too, she took my fancy--" "Yes," she interrupted, "very much." "But I did not suit _her_. I had a long talk with her, when she hardly uttered ten words. And when I at last sought by a kiss to unseal her lovely sullen little mouth--I can see her before me now--how she darted to one side and picked up a stone in each hand, so that I hardly got away without being pelted. If _you_ are that girl, then, how can you speak to me of your old love?"