hes which threw their light half across the piazza, and turned the
spray of the fountain into an iridescent shower. The gaiety of the scene
was contagious. Constance rose insistently.

'Come, Dad; let's go over and see what they're doing.'

'No, thank you, my dear. I prefer my chair.'

'Oh, Dad, you're so phlegmatic!'

'But I thought you were tired.'

'I'm not any more; I want to see the play.--You come then, Tony.'

Tony rose with an elaborate sigh.

'As you please, signorina,' he murmured obediently. An onlooker would
have thought Constance cruel in dragging him away from his well-earned
rest.

They made their way across the piazza and mounted the church steps behind
the crowd where they could look across obliquely to the little stage. A
clown was dancing to the music of a hurdy-gurdy, while a woman in a
tawdry pink satin evening gown beat an accompaniment on a drum. It was a
very poor play with very poor players, and yet it represented to these
people of Grotta del Monte something of life, of the big outside world
which they in their little village would never see. Their upturned faces
touched by the moonlight and the flare of the torches contained a look of
wondering eagerness--the same look that had been in the eyes of the young
peasant when he had begged to be taken to America.

The two stood back in the shadow of the doorway watching the people with
the same interest that the people were expending on the stage. A child
had been lifted to the base of the saint's pedestal in order to see, and
in the excitement of a duel between two clowns he suddenly lost his
balance and toppled off. His mother snatched him up quickly and
commenced covering the hurt arm with kisses to make it well.

Constance laughed.

'Isn't it queer,' she asked, 'to think how different these people are
from us and yet how exactly the same. Their way of living is absolutely
foreign, but their feelings are just like yours and mine.'

He touched her arm and called her attention to a man and a girl on the
step below them. It was the young peasant again who had guided them down
the mountain, but who now had eyes for no one but Maria. She leaned
toward him to see the stage and his arm was around her. Their interest in
the play was purely a pretence, and both of them knew it.

Tony laughed softly and echoed her words.

'Yes, their feelings are just like yours and mine.'

He slipped his arm around her.

Constance drew back quickly.