ning we went down to see
the temples at close quarters. I had been warned that the road would be
too rough for an automobile; but a gallant Napier which had passed
through the forest of the Landes and braved the dragon's teeth sown on
the roads of Sicily's fastnesses was not to be dismayed by a few jolting
miles. Everyone in the hotel--English, American, German--came out to
see us start, predicting that if we came back the car wouldn't, or if
_it_ came back, it would be--so to speak--over our dead bodies. Aunt
Mary was so much impressed by these dark prophecies that she refused to
accompany us, and engaged one of the odd little carriages from the
ancient town of Girgenti bristling on the height above our hotel. Thus
it came about that I had my Goddess to myself, and in her congenial
company I hardly knew whether the road was rough or no. Certainly the
good Napier did not complain, and as for the tyres, the roads of Central
Sicily had made them callous.

I thought then that never was such a day in the memory of man; but
several days have come and gone since--also with her, and a man's
opinion changes. I knew that in the society of no one else would there
have hovered such a glamour over the ruins of Greek glory. Five noble
temples they are, my Montie, of which two are almost perfect; the others
pathetic relics of past grandeur, with their heaped, fallen columns.
There they stand--or lie prone with here and there a majestic pillar
pointing skyward--in a stately row between the brilliant blue sea and
the billowing flower-starred plain on the one side, the hills and the
grim city, like a crow's nest, on the other. Their sandstone columns
hold oyster and scallop shells from prehistoric ages, while here and
there a broken vein of coralline stains the dun surface as if with
blood. Below the towering temples are shimmering olive trees,
silver-green as they quiver in the warm breeze, and on this day of ours
a myriad budding almond-blossoms were breaking at their massive feet in
rosy foam. All the ground was carpeted with yellow daisies, pimpernel,
and iris, blue-grey as my lady's eyes. Together we pictured processions
of men and maidens, white-robed, bearing urns and waving garlands of
roses, chanting paeans in a slow ascent of the amber-hued temple steps.
We also were in a mood to sing praises as we drove back to the friendly
hotel in its high eyrie of garden.

In the afternoon, I am sorry to say, we went up into the town--it