pon his breast, and when she had called
to him he had not answered. Presently he had recovered, and had been
provoked at her anxious questions, protesting that he had not been ill,
that he had simply felt rather sleepy. Luisa listened to her, standing
with her candle in her hand, her eyes glassy, and her attention divided
between the words she was hearing and another very different thought, a
thought very far removed from Uncle Piero, from the house, from
Valsolda.

CHAPTER II

THE SUMMONS TO ARMS

On the morning of the twenty-fifth of February, the day fixed for their
journey, Uncle Piero rose at half-past seven, and went to the window. A
heavy, white fog hung over the lake, hiding the mountains so that they
appeared only as short black streaks, one on the right, the other on the
left, between the lake and the fog. "Alas!" the uncle sighed. He had not
finished dressing when Luisa came in, and using the unpleasant weather
as a pretext, once more begged him to remain at home, and let her go
alone. Cia was greatly distressed, and had entreated her to urge him not
to go, for she knew he had had an attack of giddiness on the twentieth,
and that on the twenty-second he had gone to confession without
mentioning it to any one. Seeing that he was growing impatient, Luisa
decided it would be wiser to desist, and let him have his own way. Poor
Uncle Piero, he had always enjoyed the best of health, and now he was
extremely apprehensive, and the slightest disturbance alarmed him. But
he did not feel that Luisa should be allowed to set out alone in her
present state of mind, and so he was going to sacrifice himself for
her. He finished dressing and returning to the window called out
triumphantly to Luisa, who was in the little garden below.

"Look up!" said he. "Look up at the Boglia!"

High up above Oria through the smoking fog, the pale gold of the sun
shining on the mountain could be seen, and still higher up all was clear
and transparent.

"Fair weather!"

Luisa did not reply, and the old man came down to the loggia in a
cheerful frame of mind, and went out to the terrace to enjoy the
magnificent struggle between fog and sun.

The stretch of water towards the east between the Ca Rotta, the last
house of S. Mamette on the left, and the gulf of the Doi on the right,
was one immense white sea. The Ca Rotta could just be distinguished,
coming out of the fog like some spectre. At the gulf of the Doi, the
narrow bla