olitude of the high pass above Laviano; and she herself was
wearied and faint with the gloom, and the poverty, and the barrenness of
so much that was hers. But her mouth was set and firm, and she meant
that something should be done before many days, which should begin a
vast and lasting change. She did not know what she was undertaking, nor
how far she might be led in the attempt to do good against great odds of
evil on all sides; but she was not discouraged, and she had no intention
of drawing back.

It was a very long day. As the hours wore on, the three ate something
from time to time, from a basket of provisions which Elettra had
brought, and at which Veronica had laughed. But the air of the mountains
was keen, and there was not too much in the basket, after all.

Then, in the shadow below the sun-line cut by the mountains across the
earth, she saw a sharp peak, grey and regular as a pyramid, rising in
the midst of the high valley, and then beyond it, as the carriage rolled
along, there was a misty landscape of a far, low valley--and then, all
at once, the brown, tiled roofs of her own Muro were at her feet, and
far to the left, out of the houses, rose the round grey keep of the
fortress. The setting sun was behind the mountains, and the moon, near
to the full, hung, round and white, just above the tower, in the pale
eastern sky. From the second turning of the steep descent, Veronica
could see a huge bastion of the castle above the roofs, jutting out like
an independent round fort.

Many of the people knew that she was coming, and some had hastened from
their work to see her as soon as she arrived. Curious, silent, pale,
dirty, they thronged about the carriage. An old woman touched Veronica's
skirt, and then brought her hand back to her lips and kissed it. Then
another did the same--a thin, dark-browed girl with a ragged red shawl
on her head. The uncouth men stood shoulder to shoulder, staring with
unwinking eyes. A tall, pale shepherd youth was erect and motionless in
a tattered hat and a brown cloak, overtopping the others by his head and
thin throat, and there was something Sphinx-like in the expression of
his still, sad face.

On Veronica's right, as the carriage halted, was the public fountain.
Twenty or thirty tall, thin girls in short black frocks, displaying
grimy stockings and coarse shoes, or bare legs and muddy red feet, were
waiting their turns to fill the long wooden casks they carried on their
hea