come by
shyness, had disappeared round the corner of the cottage to the kitchen.
The donkey boys were resting on the stone seats in easy attitudes,
waiting for Gaspare's orders to unload, and looking forward to a drink of
the Monte Amato wine. When they had had it they meant to carry out a plan
devised by the radiant Gaspare, to dance a tarantella for the forestieri
while Sebastiano played the flute. But no hint of this intention was to
be given till the luggage had been taken down and carried into the house.
Their bright faces were all twinkling with the knowledge of their secret.
When at length Sebastiano had put down the ceramella and shaken Hermione
and Maurice warmly by the hand, and Gaspare had roughly, but with roars
of laughter, dragged Lucrezia into the light of day to be presented,
Hermione took her husband in to see their home. On the table in the
sitting-room lay a letter.

"A letter already!" she said.

There was a sound almost of vexation in her voice. The little white thing
lying there seemed to bring a breath of the world she wanted to forget
into their solitude.

"Who can have written?"

She took it up and felt contrition.

"It's from Emile!" she exclaimed. "How good of him to remember! This must
be his welcome."

"Read it, Hermione," said Maurice. "I'll look after Gaspare."

She laughed.

"Better not. He's here to look after us. But you'll soon understand him,
very soon, and he you. You speak different languages, but you both belong
to the south. Let him alone, Maurice. We'll read this together. I'm sure
it's for you as well as me."

And while Gaspare and the boys carried in the trunks she sat down by the
table and opened Emile's letter. It was very short, and was addressed
from Kairouan, where Artois had established himself for the spring in an
Arab house. She began reading it aloud in French:

"This is a word--perhaps unwelcome, for I think I understand, dear
friend, something of what you are feeling and of what you desire
just now--a word of welcome to your garden of paradise. May there
never be an angel with a flaming sword to keep the gate against
you. Listen to the shepherds fluting, dream, or, better, live, as
you are grandly capable of living, under the old olives of Sicily.
Take your golden time boldly with both hands. Life may seem to most
of us who think in the main a melancholy, even a tortured thing,
but when it is not so for a whil