riend's pain seemed old, unhappy, far-off things, and she could
not realise them here.

The _contrada_ of the Oca was the last to go by; it was a favourite
with the people because its colours were those of the Italian flag,
red, white and green, and the Evvivas broke out as it passed. Olive's
page, her cobbler's son, looked gravely up at her as he went by, and
she smiled at him and was glad to see that he still wore the magnolia
bud she had thrown him in his hood of parti-coloured silk.

Presently they were all seated--the knights and pages with their
standard-bearers and esquires--on their own stand in the place of
honour before the great central gates of the Palazzo Pubblico.

"Now the horses will run," explained the signora. "Many people like
this part best, but I do not. Poor beasts! They are half drunk, and
they are often hurt or killed. The _fantini_ lash at each other with
their hide whips. Once I saw the _Montone_ strike the _Lupa_ just as
they passed here; the crimson flashed out across his face, and in his
pain he pulled his horse aside, and it fell heavily against the
palings and threw him so that the horse of the _Bruco_ coming on
behind could not avoid going over him. They said it was terrible to
see that livid weal across his mouth as he lay in his coffin."

"He died then?"

"_Ma! Sicuro!_"

Olive looked up at the window where the Menotti should have been, and
saw strange faces there. They had not come then. They had not, and
Astorre could not. Astorre was very ill ... the times were out of
joint. Her cousin's shame and sorrow and her friend's pain seemed to
come near again, and to be once more a part of her life, and she saw
"gold tarnished, and the grey above the green." When the horses came
clattering by, urged by their riders, maddened by the roar of the
crowd, she tried to shut her eyes, but she could not. The horse of the
_Dragone_ stumbled at the turn by San Martino and the rider was
thrown, and another fell by the Chigi palace as they came round the
second time. Olive covered her face with her hands. The thin, panting
flanks, marked with half-healed scars and stained with sweat, the poor
broken knees, the strained, suffering eyes ...

"Are you ill, signorina?" the old priest asked kindly.

"No, but the poor horses--I cannot look. Who has won?"

He rose to his feet. "The _Oca_!" he cried excitedly. A great roar of
voices acclaimed the favourite's victory, and when the spent horse
came to