On the other side of the classroom, two bright anxious eyes followed him, hoping he would notice them. They were the clear blue eyes of Cristina Maggi, who might not have been the most beautiful girl that could be desired, but she was good, and “her face,” as Piero Novello, the poet of the class, had pronounced one day, “was like drops of dew in the sun after a storm, and like the laughter of children at play, running in the fields.” The verse, as even Piero knew, wasn't great; but Cristina liked it very much, and that was what mattered to him.