ly as mortals do.

"Buon' giorno, Altezza," returned Assunta.

"Is the Signorina at home?" asked the intruder.

"But no!" cried Assunta. "She has started to climb the very sky
to-day, Monte Altiera, and for what I can't make out. It only wears
out Bertuccio's shoes and the asinetto's legs."

"Grazia," said Apollo, moving away.

"Does his Highness think that the Signorina resembles her sister, the
Contessa?" asked the peasant woman for the sake of a detaining word.

"Not at all," answered the visitor, and he passed into the open road.

Then he turned over in his hand the letter which he had taken from the
laurel. Though he had read it thee times he hardly understood as yet,
and his face was the face of one who sees that the incredible has come
to pass. The letter was made up of fifteen closely written pages, and
it told the story of a young clergyman, who, convinced at last that
celibacy and the shelter of the Roman priesthood were his true
vocation, had, after long prayer and much mediation, decided to flee
the snares of the world and to renounce its joys for the sake of bliss
the other side of life.

"When you receive this letter, my dear Daphne," wrote Eustace Denton,
"I shall have been taken into the brotherhood of Saint Ambrose, for I
wish to place myself in a position where there will be no retracing my
steps."

The face of the reader on the Roman hills, as it was lifted from the
page again to the sunshine, was full of the needless pity of an alien
faith.

Along the white road that led up the mountain, and over the grass-grown
path that climbed the higher slopes, trod a solitary traveler. Now his
step was swift, as if some invisible spirit of the wind were wafting
him on; and again the pace was slow and his head bent, as if some deep
thought stayed his speed. There were green slopes above, green slopes
below, and the world opened out as he climbed on and up. Out and out
sketched the great Campagne, growing wider at each step, with the gray,
unbroken lines of aqueduct leading toward Rome and the shining sea
beyond.

* * * * *

On a great flat stone far up on the heights sat two motionless figures:
below them, partly veiling the lower world, floated a thin mist of
cloud.

"This must be Olympus," said Daphne.

"Any mountain is Olympus that touches the sky," answered Apollo.

"Where are the others?" demanded the girl. "Am I not to know your
divine friends?"

"Don'