rms came
rippling to his ears in the fiery, still air. Single figures on foot
raced desperately. Horsemen galloped towards each other, wheeled round
together, separated at speed. Giorgio saw one fall, rider and horse
disappearing as if they had galloped into a chasm, and the movements of
the animated scene were like the passages of a violent game played upon
the plain by dwarfs mounted and on foot, yelling with tiny throats,
under the mountain that seemed a colossal embodiment of silence. Never
before had Giorgio seen this bit of plain so full of active life; his
gaze could not take in all its details at once; he shaded his eyes with
his hand, till suddenly the thundering of many hoofs near by startled
him.

A troop of horses had broken out of the fenced paddock of the Railway
Company. They came on like a whirlwind, and dashed over the line
snorting, kicking, squealing in a compact, piebald, tossing mob of bay,
brown, grey backs, eyes staring, necks extended, nostrils red, long
tails streaming. As soon as they had leaped upon the road the thick dust
flew upwards from under their hoofs, and within six yards of Giorgio
only a brown cloud with vague forms of necks and cruppers rolled by,
making the soil tremble on its passage.

Viola coughed, turning his face away from the dust, and shaking his head
slightly.

"There will be some horse-catching to be done before to-night," he
muttered.

In the square of sunlight falling through the door Signora Teresa,
kneeling before the chair, had bowed her head, heavy with a twisted
mass of ebony hair streaked with silver, into the palm of her hands.
The black lace shawl she used to drape about her face had dropped to
the ground by her side. The two girls had got up, hand-in-hand, in short
skirts, their loose hair falling in disorder. The younger had thrown
her arm across her eyes, as if afraid to face the light. Linda, with
her hand on the other's shoulder, stared fearlessly. Viola looked at his
children. The sun brought out the deep lines on his face, and, energetic
in expression, it had the immobility of a carving. It was impossible to
discover what he thought. Bushy grey eyebrows shaded his dark glance.

"Well! And do you not pray like your mother?"

Linda pouted, advancing her red lips, which were almost too red; but she
had admirable eyes, brown, with a sparkle of gold in the irises, full of
intelligence and meaning, and so clear that they seemed to throw a glow
upon her t