mpassive
face and slightly glazed eyes. He had yellow-brown eyes like Ciccio.
But in the uncle the eyelids dropped in a curious, heavy way, the
eyes looked dull like those of some old, rakish tom-cat, they were
slightly rimmed with red. A curious person! And his English, though
slow, was beautifully pronounced. He glanced at Alvina with slow,
impersonal glances, not at all a stare. And he sat for the most part
impassive and abstract as a Red Indian.

At the last moment a large black priest was crammed in, and the door
shut behind him. Every available seat was let down and occupied. The
second great post-omnibus rolled away, and then the one for Mola
followed, rolling Alvina and Ciccio over the next stage of their
journey.

The sun was already slanting to the mountain tops, shadows were
falling on the gulf of the plain. The omnibus charged at a great
speed along a straight white road, which cut through the cultivated
level straight towards the core of the mountain. By the road-side,
peasant men in cloaks, peasant women in full-gathered dresses with
white bodices or blouses having great full sleeves, tramped in the
ridge of grass, driving cows or goats, or leading heavily-laden
asses. The women had coloured kerchiefs on their heads, like the
women Alvina remembered at the Sunday-School treats, who used to
tell fortunes with green little love-birds. And they all tramped
along towards the blue shadow of the closing-in mountains, leaving
the peaks of the town behind on the left.

At a branch-road the 'bus suddenly stopped, and there it sat calmly
in the road beside an icy brook, in the falling twilight. Great
moth-white oxen waved past, drawing a long, low load of wood; the
peasants left behind began to come up again, in picturesque groups.
The icy brook tinkled, goats, pigs and cows wandered and shook their
bells along the grassy borders of the road and the flat, unbroken
fields, being driven slowly home. Peasants jumped out of the omnibus
on to the road, to chat--and a sharp air came in. High overhead, as
the sun went down, was the curious icy radiance of snow mountains,
and a pinkness, while shadow deepened in the valley.

At last, after about half an hour, the youth who was conductor of
the omnibus came running down the wild side-road, everybody
clambered in, and away the vehicle charged, into the neck of the
plain. With a growl and a rush it swooped up the first loop of the
ascent. Great precipices rose on the rig