So lifting my hat, I was walking off, when, turning with me, Lucia
tripped along by my side. I quickened my pace.

"Stephen," she said, "will you not forgive me for the sake of the old
time? It is true I am going away, and that you will not see me
again--unless, unless--you will come and visit me at my country house.
Stephen, if you do not walk more slowly, I declare I shall run after you
down the public promenade!"

I turned and looked at her. With all my heart I tried to be grave and
severe, but the mock-demure look on her face caused me weakly to laugh.
And then it was good-bye to all my dignity.

"Lucy, I wish you would not tease me," I said, still more weakly.

"Poor Toto! give it bon-bons! It shall not be teased, then," she said.

Before we parted, I had promised to come and see her at her country
house within ten days. And so, with a new brightness in her face, Saint
Lucy of the Eyes came back to my heart, and came to stay.

It was mid-April when I started for Castel del Monte. It was spring, and
I was going to see my love. The land about on either side, as I went,
was faintly flushed with peach-blossom shining among the hoary stones.
By the cliff edge the spiny cactus threw out strange withered arms. A
whitethorn without spike or spine gracefully wept floods of blonde
tears.

At a little port by the sea-edge I left the main route, and fared onward
up into the mountains. A mule carried my baggage; and the muleteer who