added.
"When I am by myself something seems sweeping me away, as the tides
sweep driftwood out to sea; but here, resolution crawls up through my
body. We must be a new kind of centaur, San Pietro."

Suddenly her face went down between his ears.

"But if you and I united do drive him away, what shall we
do,--afterwards?"

"Signorina!" called Bertuccio, running up behind them. "Look! The
olives pick themselves."

At a turn in the road the view had opened. There, in a great orchard
on the side of the hill, the peasants were gathering olives before the
coming of the frost. There were scores of pickers wearing great
gay-colored aprons in which they placed the olives as they gathered
them from the trees. Ladders leaned against knotty tree trunks;
baskets filled with the green fruit stood on the ground. Ladder and
basket suggested the apple orchards of her native land, but the motley
colors of kerchief and apron, yellow, magenta, turquoise, and green,
and the gray of the eternal olive trees with the deep blue of the sky
behind them, recalled her to the enchanted country where she was fast
losing the landmarks of home.

"Signorina Daphne," said Bertuccio, speaking slowly as to a child, "did
you ever hear them tell of the maiden on the hills up here who was
carried away by a god?"

Daphne turned swiftly and tried to read his face. It was no less
expressionless than usual.

"No," she answered. "Tell me. I am fond of stories."

They were climbing the winding road again, leaving the olive pickers
behind. Bertuccio walked near, holding the donkey's tail to steady his
steps.

"It was long ago, ages and ages. Her father had the care of an olive
orchard that was old, older than our Lord," said Bertuccio, devoutly
crossing himself. "There was one tree in it that was enormously big,
as large as this,--see the measure of my arms! It was open and hollow,
but growing as olives will when there is every reason why they should
be dead. One night the family were eating their polenta--has the
Signorina tasted our polenta? It makes itself from chestnuts, and it
is very good. I must speak to my mother to offer some to the
Signorina. Well, the door opened without any knocking, and a stranger
stood there: he was young, and beyond humanity, beautiful."

Bertuccio paused; the girl felt slow red climbing to her cheek. She
dared not look behind, yet she would have given half her possessions to
see the expression of his fa