ngry; I shall not love you
if you cry. You must go home to your black-faced kid, or if you like
you may go back to the gate and see the horses start. But I can stay
with you no longer, and if you cry, I shall think you are troublesome to
me."

The rising tears were checked by terror at this change in Tito's voice.
Tessa turned very pale, and sat in trembling silence, with her blue eyes
widened by arrested tears.

"Look now," Tito went on, soothingly, opening the wallet that hung at
his belt, "here is a pretty charm that I have had a long while--ever
since I was in Sicily, a country a long way off."

His wallet had many little matters in it mingled with small coins, and
he had the usual difficulty in laying his finger on the right thing. He
unhooked his wallet, and turned out the contents on Tessa's lap. Among
them was his onyx ring.

"Ah, my ring!" he exclaimed, slipping it on the forefinger of his
right-hand. "I forgot to put it on again this morning. Strange, I
never missed it! See, Tessa," he added, as he spread out the smaller
articles, and selected the one he was in search of. "See this pretty
little pointed bit of red coral--like your goat's horn, is it not?--and
here is a hole in it, so you can put it on the cord round your neck
along with your _Breve_, and then the evil spirits can't hurt you: if
you ever see them coming in the shadow round the corner, point this
little coral horn at them, and they will run away. It is a `buona
fortuna,' and will keep you from harm when I am not with you. Come,
undo the cord."

Tessa obeyed with a tranquillising sense that life was going to be
something quite new, and that Tito would be with her often. All who
remember their childhood remember the strange vague sense, when some new
experience came, that everything else was going to be changed, and that
there would be no lapse into the old monotony. So the bit of coral was
hung beside the tiny bag with the scrap of scrawled parchment in it, and
Tessa felt braver.

"And now you will give me a kiss," said Tito, economising time by
speaking while he swept in the contents of the wallet and hung it at his
waist again, "and look happy, like a good girl, and then--"

But Tessa had obediently put forward her lips in a moment, and kissed
his cheek as he hung down his head.

"Oh, you pretty pigeon!" cried Tito, laughing, pressing her round cheeks
with his hands and crushing her features together so as to give them a