The Infantry Brigades of the line, who bear local names,the Avellino Brigade, the Como Brigade, the Lecce Brigade and so forth,have each their distinctively coloured collars.

To some extent, he added, the fulfilment of the wish only depended on herself, for in the following week he was going with his father and mother and all the family to spend a month in a place they had not far from Avellino, and that, as she knew, was not at an impossible distance from Muro.

She did not forget what he had said, however, and when she supposed that the Della Spina family had gone to the country she addressed her letters to him near Avellino.

He was to have been moved to the place near Avellino a few days ago, but he was too ill.

Nor could she invite herself to Avellino to pay a visit to Gianluca's mother.

As for Gianluca, if he were well enough to be taken to Avellino, he could be brought to Muro.

From day to day the family had been on the point of moving to Avellino, and the departure had been put off because Gianluca's condition seemed altogether too precarious.

As Gianluca's general health improved, the Duca and Duchessa began to speak of an early departure for their own place near Avellino.

The old couple grew daily more anxious to leave for Avellino.

But Gianluca quietly refused to go to Avellino at all.

"You shall not go to Avellino," he said to Veronica, when they were alone.

"I should think that anything would be better than Avellino and all the relations.

I came here to tell you that they are seriously thinking of sending for the syndic, to publish the banns of marriage at the municipality and marry them legally, after which the Duca and Duchessa will go to Avellino, and leave them here together.

His mother humoured him, and the old Duca, yearning for his little fair-haired daughter, went alone at last to Avellino.

But in 1805 the father was appointed to a post in the army of Naples, and in the autumn of 1807 his wife and children joined him at Avellino.