to the villa before the Duke grew jealous,--jealous of
the new captain of the banditti who took the place of the father of _La
Luna_, himself killed in a great battle up there in the mountains. Was
there cause? Who shall know? But there were stories among the people of
terrible things in the villa, and how _La Luna_ was seen almost never
outside the walls. Then the Duke would go for many days to Napoli,
coming home only now and then to the villa that was become a fortress,
so many men guarded its never-opening gates. And once--it was in the
spring--the Duke came silently down from Napoli, and there, by the three
poplars you see away towards the north, his carriage was set upon by
armed men, and he was almost killed; but he had with him many guards,
and after a terrible fight the brigands were beaten off; but before him,
wounded, lay the captain,--the man whom he feared and hated. He looked
at him, lying there under the torchlight, and in his hand saw _his own
sword_. Then he became a devil: with the same sword he ran the brigand
through, leaped in the carriage, and, entering the villa, crept to the
chamber of _La Luna_, and killed her with the sword she had given to her
lover.

"This is all the story of the White Villa, except that the Duke came
never again to Pesto. He went back to the king at Napoli, and for many
years he was the scourge of the banditti of Campania; for the King made
him a general, and San Damiano was a name feared by the lawless and
loved by the peaceful, until he was killed in a battle down by Mormanno.

"And _La Luna_? Some say she comes back to the villa, once a year, when
the moon is full, in the month when she was slain; for the Duke buried
her, they say, with his own hands, in the garden that was once under the
window of her chamber; and as she died unshriven, so was she buried
without the pale of the Church. Therefore she cannot sleep in
peace,--_non e vero_? I do not know if the story is true, but this is
the story, Signori, and there is the train for Napoli. _Ah, grazie!
Signori, grazie tanto! A rivederci! Signori, a rivederci!_"

SISTER MADDELENA.

Sister Maddelena.

Across the valley of the Oreto from Monreale, on the slopes of the
mountains just above the little village of Parco, lies the old convent
of Sta. Catarina. From the cloister terrace at Monreale you can see its
pale walls and the slim campanile of its chapel rising from the crowded
citron and mulberry orchards