dly
showed forth his well-known genius and Gaspare rivalled him. But Maurice
thought it was not like the tarantella upon the terrace before the house
of the priest. The brilliancy, the gayety of that rapture in the sun were
not present here among farewells. A longing to be in the open air under
the stars came to him, and when at last the grinding organ stopped he
said to Gaspare:

"I'm going outside. You'll find me there when you've finished dancing."

"Va bene, signorino. In a quarter of an hour the fireworks will be
beginning."

"And then we must start off at once."

"Si, signore."

The organ struck up again and Amedeo took hold of Gaspare by the waist.

"Maddalena, come out with me."

She followed him. She was tired. Festivals were few in her life, and the
many excitements of this long day had told upon her, but her fatigue was
the fatigue of happiness. They sat down on a wooden bench set against the
outer wall of the house. No one else was sitting there, but many people
were passing to and fro, and they could see the lamps round the "Musica
Leoncavallo," and hear it fighting and conquering the twitter of the
shepherd boy's flute and the weary wheezing of the organ within the
house. A great, looming darkness rising towards the stars dominated the
humming village. Etna was watching over the last glories of the fair.

"Have you been happy to-day, Maddalena?" Maurice asked.

"Si, signore, very happy. And you?"

He did not answer.

"It will all be very different to-morrow," he said.

He was trying to realize to-morrow, but he could not.

"We need not think of to-morrow," Maddalena said.

She arranged her skirt with her hands, and crossed one foot over the
other.

"Do you always live for the day?" Maurice asked her.

She did not understand him.

"I do not want to think of to-morrow," she said. "There will be no fair
then."

"And you would like always to be at the fair?"

"Si, signore, always."

There was a great conviction in her simple statement.

"And you, signorino?"

She was curious about him to-night.

"I don't know what I should like," he said.

He looked up at the great darkness of Etna, and again a longing came to
him to climb up, far up, into those beech forests that looked towards the
Isles of Lipari. He wanted greater freedom. Even the fair was prison.

"But I think," he said, after a pause--"I think I should like to carry
you off, Maddalena, up there, far up on Etna."

He rem