from below her to the far
distance, where the evening mists were beginning to gather the white
light of the moon, while the great mountains of the southeast were still
red with the last blood of the dying day--a view of matchless peace and
surpassing beauty, such as she had never yet seen. Just then, she looked
down, and there, at her feet, were the brown roofs of Muro. Her dream
seemed to be suddenly realized, and she had found the room of which she
had so often made the picture in her imagination. But it was far more
beautiful than she had dared to imagine or dream. The lofty fortress was
built lengthwise along the rock, facing the southwest, to meet the
winter sun from morning till night; and forever before it lay the wide
Basilicata, the peace of the valley, the height of the huge mountains,
the infinite tenderness of a distance that is seen from a vast
height--in which even what would be near in one plane, is already far by
depth.

Veronica looked out in silence for a long time, and the day faded at
last in the sky, while the moon's light whitened and strewed blackness
across the twilight shadows. The old priest stood beside her, his
three-cornered hat in his hand. But the silver spectacles had
disappeared. He could feel what was before him without seeing it
distinctly.

"I knew that I should find it," said Veronica, at last. "I always knew
that it was here. I shall live in this room."

"It is a good room," said Don Teodoro, quietly, and not at all
understanding what she meant.

"And I have an idea that I shall die in this room," added the young
girl, in a dreamy tone, not caring whether he heard or not. "I am the
last of them, you know. They all came from here in the beginning, ever
so long ago. It would be natural that the last of them should die here."

"For Heaven's sake, let us not talk of such sad things!" cried the
priest, protesting against the mere mention of death, as almost every
Italian will.

"Have they made it a sitting-room?" asked Veronica, turning from the
balcony into the deep embrasure.

She had scarcely glanced at the furniture, for she had made straight for
the window on entering. She looked about her now. There were dark
tapestries on the walls. There was a big polished table in the middle,
and a dozen or more carved chairs, covered with faded brocade, were
arranged in regular order on the three sides away from the windows. The
high vault was roughly painted in fresco, with cherubs a