neck, bidding him shun the theatre and be regular at confession; one of
the canonesses reminded him not to omit a visit to the chapel of the
Holy Winding-sheet, while the other begged him to burn a candle for her
at the Consolata; and the servants pressed forward to embrace and bless
their little master.

Day was high by this, and as the Marquess's travelling-chariot rumbled
down the valley the shadows seemed to fly before it. Odo at first lay
numb; but presently his senses woke to the call of the brightening
landscape. The scene was such as Salvator might have painted: wild
blocks of stone heaped under walnut-shade; here the white plunge of
water down a wall of granite, and there, in bluer depths, a charcoal
burner's hut sending up its spiral of smoke to the dark raftering of
branches. Though it was but a few hours since Odo had travelled from
Oropa, years seemed to have passed over him, and he saw the world with a
new eye. Each sound and scent plucked at him in passing: the roadside
started into detail like the foreground of some minute Dutch painter;
every pendent mass of fern, dark dripping rock, late tuft of harebell
called out to him: "Look well, for this is your last sight of us!" His
first sight too, it seemed: since he had lived through twelve Italian
summers without sense of the sun-steeped quality of atmosphere that,
even in shade, gives each object a golden salience. He was conscious of
it now only as it suggested fingering a missal stiff with gold-leaf and
edged with a swarming diversity of buds and insects. The carriage moved
so slowly that he was in no haste to turn the pages; and each spike of
yellow foxglove, each clouding of butterflies about a patch of
speedwell, each quiver of grass over a hidden thread of moisture, became
a marvel to be thumbed and treasured.

From this mood he was detached by the next bend of the road. The way,