occasionally sent across a Miserere to Janet in the distance,
like this: "Do you ob--serve, Miss Trescott, the col--ors of the
lem--ons below?" And Janet would gesture an assent. Lloyd and Margaret
had found a place on a little projecting plateau, where, with the warm
sunshine flooding over them, they sat contentedly talking. Meanwhile
having neither sleep, retrospect, tragedy, Miserere, nor conversation
with which to entertain myself, I really looked at the view, and
probably was the only person who did. I had time enough for it. We
remained there nearly two hours.

[Illustration: FETE, VILLAGE OF SANT' AGNESE]

At last our donkey-driver came up to tell us that dancing was going on
below, and that there was not much time if we wished to see it, since
the long homeward journey still lay before us. So we elders began to
call: "Janet!" "Janet!" "Margaret!" "Mr. Verney!" And presently from the
rock, the niche, and the plateau they came slowly in, Janet flushed, and
Inness very pale, Baker like a thunder-cloud, Miss Elaine smiling and
conscious, Verney annoyed, Lloyd just as usual, and Margaret with a
younger look in her face than I had seen there for months. In the little
rock amphitheatre below we found the villagers merrily dancing; and some
strangers like ourselves, who had come out from Mentone later, were
amusing themselves by dancing also. Janet joined the circle with Baker,
and Inness, after leaning on the parapet awhile, with his back to the
dancers, gazing into space, disappeared. I think he went homeward by
another path across the mountains. Miss Elaine admired "so much" Miss
Trescott's courage in dancing before "so many strangers." She (Miss
Elaine) was far "too shy to attempt it." But I did not notice that she
was violently urged to the attempt. In the meantime Lloyd was looking at
an English girl belonging to the other party, who was dancing near us.
She was tall and shapely, with the beautiful English rose-pink
complexion, and abundant light hair which had the glint of bronze where
the sun shone across it. After a while, as the others came near, he
recognized in one of them an acquaintance, who turned out to be the
brother of the young lady who had been dancing.

When, as we returned, we reached the main street of Mentone, Margaret
and I, who were behind, stopped a moment and looked back. The far peak
of Sant' Agnese was flushed with rose-light, although where we were it
was already night.

"It does not s