"But why should he appear to me?" asked Daphne. "I have no claim upon
the help of the saints."

"Perhaps because the Signorina is a heretic," answered Assunta
tenderly. "Our Lady must have special care for her if she sends out
the holy ones to bring her to the fold."

The woman's face was alight with reverence and pride, and Daphne turned
back to her flowers, shamed by these peasant folk for their belief in
the immanence of the divine.

Half an hour later Assunta reappeared, clad in Sunday garments, wearing
her best coral earrings and her little black silk shoulder shawl
covered with gay embroidered flowers. She held out a letter to the
girl.

"I go to take the wreaths to Our Lady," she announced, "and to confess
and pray. The Signorina has made them pretty, if they are but common
things."

Daphne was reading her letter; even the peasant woman could see that it
bore glad tidings, for the light that broke in the girl's face was like
the coming of dawn over the hills.

"Wait, Assunta," she said quietly, when she had finished, and she
disappeared among the trees. In a minute she came back with three
crimson roses, single, and yellow at the heart.

"Will you take them with your wreaths for me to the Madonna?" she said,
putting them into Assunta's hand. "I am more thankful than either one
of you."

CHAPTER XVI

Assunta had carried a small tray out to the arbor in the garden, and
Daphne was having her afternoon tea there alone. About her, on the
frescoed walls of this little open-air pavilion, were grouped pink
shepherds and shepherdesses, disporting themselves in airy garments of
blue and green in a meadow that ended abruptly to make room for long
windows. The girl leaned back and sipped her tea luxuriously. She was
clad in a gown that any shepherdess among them might have envied, a
pale yellow crepy thing shot through with gleams of gold. Before her
the Countess Accolanti's silver service was set out on an inlaid
Florentine table, partially protected by an open work oriental scarf.
Upon it lay the letter that had come an hour before, and the Signorina
now and then feasted her eyes upon it. Just outside the door was a
bust of Masaccio, set on a tall pedestal, grass growing on the rough
hair and heavy eyelids. Pavilion and tea-table seemed an odd bit of
convention, set down in the neglected wildness of this old garden, and
Daphne watched it all with entire satisfaction over her Sevres teacup.