osing a few hours at noon near some fountain
or shrine by the wayside,--often experiencing the kindly veneration of
the simple peasantry, who cheerfully offered them refreshments, and
begged their prayers at the holy places whither they were going.

In a few days they reached Naples, where they made a little stop with
the hospitable family to whom Jocunda had recommended them. From Naples
their path lay through the Pontine Marshes; and though the malaria makes
this region a word of fear, yet it is no less one of strange, soft,
enchanting beauty. A wide, sea-like expanse, clothed with an abundance
of soft, rich grass, painted with golden bands and streaks of bright
yellow flowers, stretches away to a purple curtain of mountains, whose
romantic outline rises constantly in a thousand new forms of beauty. The
upland at the foot of these mountains is beautifully diversified with
tufts of trees, and the contrast of the purple softness of the distant
hills with the dazzling gold and emerald of the wide meadow-tracts they
inclose is a striking feature in the landscape. Droves of silver-haired
oxen, with their great, dreamy, dark eyes and polished black horns, were
tranquilly feeding knee-deep in the lush, juicy grass, and herds of
buffaloes, uncouth, but harmless, might be seen pasturing or reposing in
the distance. On either side of the way were waving tracts of yellow
fleur-de-lis, and beds of arum, with its arrowy leaves and white
blossoms. It was a wild luxuriance of growth, a dreamy stillness of
solitude, so lovely that one could scarce remember that it was deadly.

Elsie was so impressed with the fear of the malaria, that she trafficked
with an honest peasant, who had been hired to take back to Rome the
horses which had been used to convey part of the suite of a nobleman
travelling to Naples, to give them a quicker passage across than they
could have made on foot. It is true that this was quite contrary to the
wishes of Agnes, who felt that the journey ought to be performed in the
most toilsome and self-renouncing way, and that they should trust solely
to prayer and spiritual protection to ward off the pestilential
exhalations.

In vain she quoted the Psalm, "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror
by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence
that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at
noon-day," and adduced cases of saints who had walked unhurt through all
sorts of danger