before--of slights and scorns, for she was a woman, and understood. It
came into my mind as I spoke that as soon as I had finished she would
leave me; and I slackened my arm that she might the more easily withdraw
her hand. But yet I spoke on faithfully, hiding nothing. I told of our
poverty, of the struggle with the hill-farm and the backward seasons, of
my mother who looked over the moorland with sweet tired eyes as for some
one that came not. I spoke of the sheep that had been my care, of the
books I had read on the heather, and of all the mystery and the sadness
of our life.

Then we fell silent, and the shadows of the sadness I had left behind me
seemed to shut out the kindly stars. I would have taken my arm away, but
that the Countess drew it nearer to herself, clasping her hands about
it, and said softly--

"Tell me more--" and then, after a little pause, she added, "and you may
call me Lucia! For have you not saved my life?"

Like a dream the old Edinburgh room, where with Giovanni Turazza I read
the Tuscan poets, came to me. An ancient rhyme was in my head, and ere
I was aware I murmured--

"Saint Lucy of the Eyes!"

The Countess started as if she had been stung.

"No, not that--not that," she said; "I am not good enough."

There was some meaning in the phrase to her which was not known to me.