door. There was nothing urgent to do, and she could from the
threshold keep a watch on the little vagabond, and would be aware if
she awoke. All around was quiet. She could see up and down the
valley, beyond the thin, silvery foliage of the great olive-trees,
and across it to where the ruins of a great fortress towered in their
tragic helplessness. The sun shone upon her fields of young wheat,
her slopes of pasture. The cherry-trees and the pear-trees were in
bloom, her trellised vines running from tree to tree. Ragged-robin,
yellow crowsfoot, purple orchis, filled the grass, intermixed with
the blue of borage and the white and gold of the oxeye. She did not
note these things. Those fancies were for her son. Herself, she would
have preferred that there should be no flower in the grasses, for
before the cow was fed the flowers had to be picked out of the cut
grass, and had served no good end that she could perceive, for she
knew of no bees except the wild ones, whose honey no one ever tasted,
hidden from sight in hollow trees as it was.

Nerina slept on in peace and without dreams. Now and then another
rose let fall some petals on her, or a bee buzzed above her, but her
repose remained undisturbed.

The good food filled her, even in her sleep, with deep contentment,
and the brain, well nourished by the blood, was still.

Clelia Alba felt her heart soften despite herself for this lonely
creature; though she was always suspicious of her, for she had never
known any good thing come down from the high mountains, but only
theft and arson and murder, and men banded together to solace their
poverty with crime. In her youth the great brigands of the Upper
Abruzzo had been names of terror in Ruscino, and in the hamlets lying