evil.

"Chi lo sa? Who knows, Signorina?" he said, half whispering. "There
are stories--I have heard--the Signorina sees these ilex trees? Over
yonder was a great one in my father's day, and the old Count Accolanti
would have it cut. He came to watch it as it fell, and the tree
tumbled the wrong way and struck him so that he half lost his wits.
There are who say that the tree god was angry. And I have heard about
the streams, too, Signorina; when they are turned out of their course,
they overflow and do damage, and surely there used to be river gods. I
do not know; I cannot tell. The priest says they are all gone since the
coming of our Lord, but I wouldn't, not for all the gold in Rome, I
wouldn't see this stream of the waterfalls turned away from flowing
down the hill and through the house. What there is in it I do not
know, but in some way it is alive."

"Thank you!" said Daphne. The look on her face pleased the old man.

"I think I prefer her to the Contessa after all," said Giacomo that
afternoon to Assunta as he was beating the salad dressing for dinner.

"She is simpatica! It is wonderful how she understands, though she
cannot yet talk much. But her eyes speak."

They served her dinner with special care that night, for kindness to an
unfortunate fellow peasant had won what still needed winning of their
hearts. She sat alone in the great dining-hall, with Giacomo moving
swiftly about her on the marble floor. On the white linen and silver,
on her face and crimson gown, gleamed the light of many candles,
standing in old-fashioned branching candlesticks. She pushed away her
soup; it seemed an intrusion. Not until she heard Giacomo's murmur of
disappointment as she refused salad did she rouse herself to do justice
to the dressing he had made. Her eyes were the eyes of one living in a
dream. Suddenly she wakened to the fact that she was hungry, and
Giacomo grinned as she asked him to bring back the roast, and let him
fill again with cool red wine the slender glass at her right hand. When
the time for dessert came, she lifted a bunch of purple grapes and put
them on her plate, breaking them off slowly with fingers that got
stained.

"I shall wake up by and by!" she said, leaning back in her carved
Florentine chair. "Only I hope it may be soon. Otherwise," she added,
nibbling a bit of ginger, unconscious that her figures were mixed, "I
shall forget my way back to the world."

CHAPTER VI

Ther