ts
down a basket from her window at nights for letters, and I believe she
meets him when my aunt thinks she has gone to Mass. It is dreadful.
How glad we shall be when she is safely married and away."

"Who is the man?"

"Hush! I don't know. Do you hear the beating of a drum? One of the
_Contrade_ is coming."

The two girls ran to the window, and Olive opened the green shutters a
little way that they might see out without being seen. The day of the
Palio was close at hand, and the pages and _alfieri_ of the rival
parishes, whose horses were to run in the race, were already going
about the town. Olive never tired of watching the flash of bright
colours as the flags were flung up and deftly caught again, and she
cried out now with pleasure as the little procession moved leisurely
across the piazza.

"I wonder why they come here," Carmela said, as the first _alfiero_
let the heavy folds of silk ripple about his head, twisted the staff,
seemed to drop it, and gathered it to him again easily with his left
hand. The page stood aside with a grave assumption of the gilded
graces of the thirteenth century. He was handsome in his dress of
green and white and scarlet velvet.

"Why does he look up here?"

Olive laughed a little. "He is the son of the cobbler who mends my
boots," she whispered. "He is trying to learn English and I have lent
him some books, and that is why he has come to do us honour. I think
it is charming of him."

She took a white magnolia blossom from a glass dish on her table.
"Shall I be mediaeval too?"

The boy raised smiling eyes as the pale flower came fluttering down to
him. One of the _alfieri_ laughed aloud.

"_O Romeo, sei bello!_"

"_Son' felice!_" he answered, and he kissed the waxen petals ardently.

Olive softly clapped her hands together. "Is he not delicious! What an
actor! Oh, Italy!"

Now that the performance was over the _alfieri_ strolled across the
piazza to the barrow that was still drawn up by the column.
"_Cocomeri! Fresc' e buoni!_"

"I never know what will please you," Carmela said as she sat down.
"But foreigners always like the Palio. You will see many English and
Americans and Germans on the stands."

"Yes, I love it all. Yesterday I passed through the Piazza del Campo
and saw the workmen putting palings all about the centre, and
hammering at the stands, while others strewed sand on the course and
fastened mattresses to the side of the house by San Martino."

"Ah,