ls of the carriage,
and the coachman lashed backwards at them with his whip. But the cruel
day was not yet over, and the people had not come back from their toil,
so that the place was almost deserted still. There was an evil smell in
the air, and the children's faces were pale and swollen and dirty.

Veronica wondered how any people could be poorer than these, and her
face grew still more sad. She tried to speak to the children, but they
could not understand her. She got some little coins from her purse, but
they were too much frightened to come forward and take them. They were
not afraid of the priest, however, and Don Teodoro got out of the
carriage and put the money into their horrible little hands, and they
ran away with strange small cries and wild, half-noiseless laughter--if
laughter can be anything but noisy. Let such words pass as come; for no
words of our tongue can quite tell all Veronica saw and heard on that
day. The great Italian myth survives in foreign nations; it has even
more life, perhaps, in Italy itself, north of the Roman line; but only
those know what Italy is, who have trudged on foot, and ridden by
mountain paths, and driven by southern highways, through hill and valley
and mountain and plain, from house to house, where there are neither
inns nor taverns, throughout that vast region which is the half of the
whole country, or more, and where the abomination of desolation reigns
supreme in broad day.

That Italy has done what she has done in thirty years, to be a power
among nations, is a marvel, a wonder, and almost a miracle. That she
should have done it at all, is the greatest mistake ever committed by a
civilized nation, and it is irrevocable, as its results are to be fatal
and lasting. But upon the good reality of unity, the deadly dream of
military greatness descended as a killing blight, and the evil vision of
political power has blasted the common sense of a whole people. It is
one thing to be one, as a united family, each working for the good of
each and all; it is another thing, and a worse thing, to be one as a
vast and idle army, sitting down to besiege its own storehouses, each
eating something of the whole and doing nothing to increase that whole,
till all is gone, and the vision fades in the awakening from the dream,
leaving the bare nakedness of desolation to tell the story of a huge
mistake.

Even Veronica's strong horses were well nigh tired out when they reached
the dismal s