oor was not locked. Arming herself with a hoe she
came back, and, under the light of southern stars, dug a little grave
in the soft, dark earth, easily loosened in its crumbling richness.
Then she took the lamp and searched in the deep thick grass for
flowers, coming back with a mass of pink-tipped daisies gathered in her
skirt. The sight of the brown earth set her to thinking: there ought
to be some kind of shroud. Near the tool-house grew a laurel tree, she
remembered, and from that she stripped a handful of green, glossy
leaves, to spread upon the bottom of the grave. This done, she bore
the body of Hermes to his resting-place, and strewed the corpse with
pink daisies.

"Should he have Christian or heathen burial?" she asked, smiling. "This
seems to be a place where the two faiths meet. I think neither. He
must just be given back to Mother Nature."

She heaped the sod over him with her own hands, and fitted neatly
together some bits of turf. Then she took up her lamp to go. San
Pietro, tired of ceremony, was grazing in the little circle of light.

"To-morrow," said Daphne, as she went down the hill, "he will be eating
grass from Hermes' grave."

CHAPTER XV

The shadow of branching palms fell on the Signorina's hair and hands as
she sat at work near the fountain in the garden weaving a great wreath
of wild cyclamen and of fern gathered from the hillside. Assunta was
watching her anxiously, her hands resting on her hips.

"It's a poor thing to offer the Madonna," she said at length, "just
common things that grow."

Daphne only smiled at her and went on winding white cord about the
stems under green fronds where it could not be seen.

"I was ready to buy a wreath of beautiful gauze flowers from Rome,"
ventured Assunta, "all colors, red and yellow and purple. I have plenty
of silver for it upstairs in a silk bag. Our Lady will think I am not
thankful, though the blessed saints know I have never been so thankful
in my life as I am for Bertuccio's coming home when he did."

"The Madonna will know," said Daphne. "She will like this better than
anything else."

"Are you sure?" asked Assunta dubiously.

"Yes," asserted the girl, laughing. "She told me so!"

The audacity of the remark had an unexpected effect on the peasant
woman. Assunta crossed herself.

"Perhaps she did! Perhaps she did! And do you think she does not mind
my waiting?"

"No," answered Daphne gravely. "She knows that you