familiar to those who wish to do as they please
without hindrance from within or without.

CHAPTER XIX.

The roads were good, for it was the month of May. In winter, even
Veronica's strong horses could hardly have dragged the light carriage to
its destination in one day. It was but little after ten o'clock in the
morning when Veronica got out upon the platform of the railway station
at Eboli; it was sunset, and the full moon was rising, when her carriage
stopped at the entrance of the mountain town.

It had been a very long day, and she had seen much that was quite new to
her, and different from what she had expected. At first, indeed, she was
amazed at the richness of the country beyond Eboli, as she was driven
for nearly an hour through what was literally a forest of ancient olive
trees, interrupted only here and there by a broad field of vines, cut
low and trained upon short stakes; and from the rising ground beyond
Carpella, where the road winds up the first hill, she looked back and
saw the shimmering grey-green light of the olive leaves, lying like a
delicate mantle over the flat country and in the great hollow, from
Eboli to the deep gorge wherein the ancient city of Campania lies as in
a nest. A part of the olive land was hers; and as she drove along, the
midday breeze blew some of the tiny, star-like olive blossoms into her
lap. She took one in her fingers and looked at it closely and could just
smell its very faint, aromatic odour.

"It is the first greeting from what is yours," said Don Teodoro, with a
smile.

"The wind brings me my own flowers," answered Veronica, and she laughed
softly and happily.

Up steep hills and down into deep valleys, across high, arched stone
bridges, beneath which the water of the Sele was streaming fast and
clear amid white limestone boulders and over broad reaches of white
pebbles that were dazzling in the sun--and the olive trees were left
behind, and here and there were patches of big timber, oaks to which the
old, brown leaves still clung in the spring, and many poplars straight
and feathery with leaves but yet half grown. But the land was by degrees
less rich and less cultivated, till gradually it changed to a rough and
stony country, and even from far off Veronica could see the little
flocks of sheep dark brown and white, and small herds of cloud-grey
cattle, pasturing and moving slowly on the hillsides above and below the
winding road.

She looked at the sh