find as flies in summer."

What was the marriage of the poor for the woman? What did it bring?
What did it mean? The travail of child-bearing, the toil of the
fields, the hardship of constant want, the incessant clamour on her
ear of unsatisfied hunger, the painful rearing of sons whom the State
takes away from her as soon as they are of use, painful ending of
life on grudged crusts as a burden to others on a hearth no longer
her own. This, stripped of glamour, is the lot nine times out of ten
of the female peasant -- a creature of burden like the cow she yokes,
an animal valued only in her youth and her prime; in old age or in
sickness like the stricken and barren goat, who has nought but its
skin and its bones.

Poor little Nerina!

As he went home he saw her cutting fodder for a calf; she was
kneeling in a haze of rose colour made by the many blossoms of the
_orchis maculat_ which grew there. The morning light sparkled in the
wet grass. She got up as she saw him cross the field, dropped her
curtsey low with a smile, then resumed her work, the dew, the sun,
the sweet fresh scents shed on her like a benison.

"Poor little soul," thought Don Silverio. "Poor little soul! Has
Adone no eyes?"

Adone had eyes, but they saw other things than a little maiden in the
meadow-grass.

To her he was a deity; she believed in him and worshipped him with