lves along the wall stood bottles of
yellow oil; partly buried in the ground were numerous jars of wine,
bottles and jars both keeping the beautiful Etruscan curves. On
shallow racks were spread bunches of yellow and of purple grapes, and
golden combs of honey gleamed from dusky corners.

"Ecco!" said Assunta, pointing to the wine jar from which she had been
filling the bottle in her hand. "The holy cross! Does the Signorina
see it?"

"Si," said Daphne.

"And here also?" asked Assunta, pointing to another.

The girl nodded doubtfully. Two irregular scratches could, by
imaginative vision, be translated into a cross.

"As on every one, Signorina," said Assunta triumphantly. "And nobody
puts it there. It comes by itself."

"Really?" asked the girl.

"Veramente," replied the peasant woman. "It has to, and not only here,
but everywhere. You see, years and years ago, there were heathen
spirits in the wine, and they made trouble when our Lord came. I have
heard that the jars burst and the wine was wasted because the god of
the wine was angry that the real God was born. And it lasted till San
Pietro came and exorcised the wicked spirit, and he put a cross on a
wine jar to keep him away. Since then every wine jar bears somewhere
the sign of the cross."

"What became of the poor god?" asked Daphne.

"He fled, I suppose to hell," answered Assunta piously.

"Poor heathen gods!" murmured Daphne.

The sunshine, flooding the little room, fell full on her face, and made
red lights in her brown hair.

"There was a god of the sun, too, named Apollo," she said, warming her
hands in level rays. "Was he banished too?"

Assunta shrugged her shoulders.

"Who knows? They dare not show their faces here since the Holy Father
has blessed the land."

Hermes bleated at the door, and the trio descended the hill together,
Assunta carrying a basket of grapes and a bottle of yellow oil, Daphne
with a slender flask of red wine in her hand.

The next day the heavens opened, and rain poured down. The cascades
above the villa became spouting waterfalls; the narrow path beside them
a leaping brook. The rain had not the steady and persistent motion of
well-conducted rain; it came in sheets, blown by sudden gusts against
the windows, or driven in wild spurts among the cypresses. The world
from the villa windows seemed one blur of watery green, with a thin
gray veil of mist to hide it.

Daphne paced the mosaic floors in id