moment for combat, and it was not
unpleasant, after all--so he phrased it in his mind--to be looked after,
thought for, educated in the etiquette of the Enchanted Isle by a son of
its soil, with its wild passions and its firm repressions linked together
in his heart.

"Gasparino," he said, meekly. "I want you to look after me. But don't be
unkind to me. I'm older than you, I know, but I feel awfully young here,
and I do want to have a little fun without doing any harm to anybody, or
getting any harm myself. One thing I promise you, that I'll always trust
you and tell you what I'm up to. There! Have you quite forgiven me now?"

Gaspare's face became radiant. He felt that he had done his duty, and
that he was now properly respected by one whom he looked up to and of
whom he was not merely the servant, but also the lawful guardian.

They went up to the cottage singing in the morning sunshine.

XI

"Signorino! Signorino!"

Maurice lifted his head lazily from the hands that served it as a pillow,
and called out, sleepily:

"Che cosa c'e?"

"Where are you, signorino?"

"Down here under the oak-trees."

He sank back again, and looked up at the section of deep-blue sky that
was visible through the leaves. How he loved the blue, and gloried in the
first strong heat that girdled Sicily to-day, and whispered to his happy
body that summer was near, the true and fearless summer that comes to
southern lands. Through all his veins there crept a subtle sense of
well-being, as if every drop of his blood were drowsily rejoicing. Three
days had passed, had glided by, three radiant nights, warm, still,
luxurious. And with each his sense of the south had increased, and with
each his consciousness of being nearer to the breast of Sicily. In those
days and nights he had not looked into a book or glanced at a paper. What
had he done? He scarcely knew. He had lived and felt about him the
fingers of the sun touching him like a lover. And he had chattered idly
to Gaspare about Sicilian things, always Sicilian things; about the fairs
and the festivals, Capo d'Anno and Carnevale, martedi grasso with its
_Tavulata_, the solemn family banquet at which all the relations assemble
and eat in company, the feasts of the different saints, the peasant
marriages and baptisms, the superstitions--Gaspare did not call them
so--that are alive in Sicily, and that will surely live till Sicily is
no more; the fear of the evil-eye and of spells, and