esitation, he
had told her how, long ago, before she was born, his Padrone had read
to him such a tale as they lay together upon a mountain side in Sicily.
Vere had eagerly questioned him, and he, speaking with vehemence in the
heat of his recollection, had brought before her a picture of that scene
in his simple life; had shown her how he lay, and how the Padrone
lay, he listening, the Padrone, book in hand, reading about the "mago
africano." He had even told Vere of their conversation afterwards, and
how he had said that he would always be free, that he would never be
"stoppered up," like the "mago africano." And when she had wondered at
his memory growing still more excited he had told her many other things
of which his Padrone and he had talked together, and had made her feel
the life of the past on Monte Amato as no cultured person, she believed,
could ever have made her feel it. But when she had sought to question
him about her father's death he had become silent, and she had seen that
it would be impossible to make him obey her and tell her all the details
that she longed to know.

To-night Vere could see no fishermen at work. The silver of the sea
below her was unbroken by the black forms of gliding boats, the silence
was unbroken by calling voices. And to-night she was glad that it was
so; for she was in the mood to be quite alone. As she sat there very
still she seemed to herself to be drawing nearer to the sea, and drawing
the sea to her. Indeed, she was making some such imaginative attempt as
her mother was making in the house--to become, in fancy at least, one
with something outside of her, to be fused with the sea, as her mother
desired to be fused with her. But Vere's endeavor was not tragic, like
her mother's, but was almost tenderly happy. She thought she felt the
sea responding to her as she responded to the sea. And she was very glad
in that thought.

Presently she began to wonder about the fishermen.

How did they feel about the sea? To her the sea was romantic and
personal. Was it romantic and personal to them? They were romantic to
her because of their connection with the sea, which had imprinted
upon them something of itself, showed forth in them, by means of them,
something surely of its own character; but probably, almost certainly,
she supposed, they were unconscious of this. They lived by the sea.
Perhaps they thought of it as of a vast money-bag, into which they
dipped their hands to get e