echless in
her presence, or became so nervous in their desire to answer her
questions, that the information she was able to obtain concerning their
troubles was too vague to be of any use.

The Italian peasant is not the same in all parts of the country, as is
generally supposed; and although the Tuscan, who is constantly brought
into familiar contact with his landlord, and acquires a certain pleasant
faith in him, grows eloquent upon the conditions of his being, the same
is not true of the rougher race that labours in the valleys of the Sabine
and the Samnite hills. The peasant of the Agro Romano is indeed capable
of civilisation and he is able to understand his superiors, provided that
he is gradually accustomed to seeing them: unfortunately this occurs but
rarely. Many of the great Roman landholders spend a couple of months of
every year upon their estates: old Astrardente had in his later years
gone to considerable expense in refitting and repairing the castle, but
he had done little for the town. Men like the Saracinesca, however, were
great exceptions at that time; though they travelled much abroad, they
often remained for many months in their rugged old fortress. They knew
the inhabitants of their lands far and wide, and were themselves not only
known but loved; they spent their money in improving the condition of
their peasants, in increasing the area of their forests, and in fostering
the fertility of the soil, but they cared nothing for adorning the grey
stone walls of their ancestors' stronghold. It had done well enough for a
thousand years, it would do well enough still; it had stood firm against
fierce sieges in the dark ages of the Roman baronry, it could afford to
stand unchanged in its monumental strength against the advancing sea of
nineteenth-century civilisation. They themselves, father and son, were
content with such practical improvements as they could introduce for the
good of their people and the enriching of their land; a manly race,
despising luxury, they cared little whether their home was thought
comfortable by the few guests they occasionally invited to spend a week
with them. They saw much of the peasantry, and went daily among them,
understanding their wants, and wisely promoting in their minds the belief
that land cannot prosper unless both landlord and tenant do their share.

But Astrardente was a holding of a very different kind, and Corona, in
her first attempts at understanding the sta