eshness from the
slightly moving breeze. Away on the brown hills, fading into a
transparent veil of blue, the bright dresses of the peasant women
stooping at their toil, the purple glory of the vineyards, and the deep,
quiet green of the olive groves--all these simple characteristics of the
pastoral landscape were like brilliant patches of coloring upon a
fitting background. Soon the haze of the noonday heat would hang upon
the earth, deadening the purity of its color, and making the air heavy
and oppressive with faint overladen perfumes. But as yet the sun lay low
in the heavens, and the earth beneath was like a fair still picture.

The heavy lumbering coach which connected the little town with the
outside world was drawn up at the gate of the villa, and twice the
quaintly sounding horn had broken the morning stillness. It was a moment
of farewell, a farewell not for days or for years, but forever.

Their words denied it, yet in their hearts was that certain conviction,
and much of that peculiar sadness which it could not fail to bring. Yet
she would not have them stay for the end. She had bidden them go, and
the hour had come.

Too weak to walk, or even sit upright, they had laid her upon a sofa in
front of the open windows, through which the perfume from the garden
below stole sweetly in on the bosom of the slowly stirring south wind.
On one side of her stood a tall mild-faced priest from the brotherhood
who had made their home in the valley below, on the other were Bernard
and his wife, her son and daughter.

There was no doubt that she was dying, that she was indeed very near
death. Yet she was sending them away from her. The brief while they
three had lived there together had been like a late autumn to her life,
which had blossomed forth with sweet moments of happiness such as she
had never dreamed of. And now her summons had come, and she was ready.
In her last moments she must return once more to that absolute
detachment from all save spiritual things in which for many years she
had lived, a saintly, blessed woman. So she had bidden them go, even her
son, even that fair sweet English girl who had been more than a daughter
to her. She had bidden them go. The last words had been spoken, for the
last time her trembling lips had been pressed to her son's. Yet they
lingered.

And there came of a sudden, floating through the window, the sweet slow
chiming of the matins bell from the monastery below. Almost it see