f the hill. And once the
red-cheeked Italian lads who were carrying loaded baskets down toward
the vineyard gates burst into responsive singing that made her think
that she had found, on the Roman hills, some remnant of the old Bacchic
music, of the alternate strains that marked the festival of the god of
wine. It was something like this:--

Carlo.

"Of all the gifts of all the gods
I choose the ruddy wine.
The brimming glass shall be my lot"--

Giovanni (interrupting).

"Carlotta shall be mine!
Take you the grape, I only ask
The shadow of the vine
To screen Carlotta's golden head"--

Carlo (interrupting).

"Give me the ruddy wine."

Together.

G. "Carlotta shall be mine!"
C. "Give me the ruddy wine!"

Assunta was visibly happy when the Signorina signified her willingness
to go home. The pride of the house servant was touched by being
compelled to come too closely in contact with the workers in the
fields, and where is there pride like that of a peasant? But her joy
was short-lived. Outside the great iron gates stood a team of
beautiful fawn-colored oxen, with spotless flanks, and great, blue,
patient eyes looking out from under broad foreheads. They were
starting, with huge muscles quivering under their white skin, to carry
a load of grapes to the wine press, the yield of this year being too
great for the usual transportation on donkey back.

"Assunta, I go too," cried Daphne.

Five minutes later the Signorina, with her unwilling handmaid at her
side, rode in triumph up the broad highway with the measured motion of
slow oxen feet. Place had been made for them among the grape baskets,
and they sat on folded blankets, Assunta's face wearing the expression
of one who was a captive indeed, the Signorina's shining with simple
happiness and somewhat stained by grapes.

The wine press was nothing after all but a machine, and though a
certain interest attached to the great vats, hollowed out in the tufa
rock, into which the new-made wine trickled, Daphne soon signified her
willingness to depart. Before she left they brought her a great glass
of rich red grape juice fresh from the newly crushed grapes. She
touched her lips to it, then looked about her. Assunta was talking to
the workman who had given it to her, and he was looking the other way.
She feasted her eyes on the color of the thing she held in her hand.
It was a rough glass whose shallow bowl had the old Etruscan cur