dued voice as if fearful of
offending her--'You can never know how absolutely my soul is yours.'

She grew suddenly very pale, as if all the blood in her veins had rushed
to her heart. She did not speak, she did not look at him.

'Delfina!' she cried, with a tremor of agitation in her voice.

There was no answer; the little girl had wandered off among the trees at
the end of the long avenue.

'Delfina,' she repeated, louder than before, in a sort of terror.

In the pause that followed her cry the songs of the two waters seemed to
make the silence deeper.

'Delfina!'

There was a rustling in the leaves as if from the passage of a little
kid, and the child came bounding through the laurel thicket, carrying in
her hands her straw hat heaped to the brim with little red berries she
had gathered. Her exertions and the running had brought a deep flush to
her cheeks, broken twigs were sticking in her frock, and some leaves
hung trembling in the meshes of her ruffled hair.

'Oh mamma, come quick--do come with me!'

She began dragging her mother away--'There is a perfect forest over
there--heaps and heaps of berries! Come with me, mamma, do come--'

'No, darling, I would rather not--it is getting late.'

'Oh, do come!'

'But it is late.'

'Come! Come!'

Donna Maria was obliged to give in and let herself be dragged along by
the hand.

'There is a way of reaching the arbutus wood without going through the
thicket,' said Andrea.

'Do you hear, Delfina? There is a better way.'

'No, mamma, I want you to come with me.'

Delfina pulled her mother along towards the sea through the laurel
thicket, and Andrea followed, content to be able to gaze without
restraint at the beloved figure in front of him, to devour her with his
eyes, to study her every movement and her rhythmic walk, interrupted
every moment by the irregularities of the path, the obstacles presented
by the trees and their interlaced branches. But while his eyes feasted
on these things, his mind was chiefly occupied in recalling the one
attitude, the one look--oh, that pallor, that sudden pallor just now
when he had proffered those few low words! And the indefinable tone of
her voice when she called Delfina.

'Is it far now?' asked Donna Maria.

'No, no, mamma, we are just there--here it is!'

As they neared the spot a sort of shyness came over Andrea. Since those
words of his he had not met Maria's eye. What did she think? What were
her feelings? W