gray fragment of stone marked garden and forum. Here was a bit
of wall, with a touch of gay painting mouldering on an inner
surface,--Venus, in robe of red, rising from a daintily suggested
sea in lines of green. They gathered fragments of old mosaic
floor in their hands, blue lapis lazuli, yellow bits of giallo
antico, red porphyry, trodden by gay feet and sad, unnumbered
years ago. They found broken pieces of iridescent glass that had
fallen, perhaps, from shattered wine cups of the emperors, and
all these treasures Bertuccio stored away in his wide pockets.
Again, they climbed gracious heights and looked down over slopes
and valleys, where deep grass grew over rich, crumbling earth,
deposit of dead volcanoes, or saw, circled by soft green hills,
some mountain lake, reflecting the perfect blue of Italian sky.

Bertuccio usually walked behind; Daphne rode on ahead, with the
sun burning her cheeks, and the air, fragrant with the odor of
late ripening grapes on the upper hillsides, bringing
intoxication. She seemed to herself so much a thing of falling
rain, rich earth, and wakening sunshines that she would not have
been surprised to find the purple bloom of those same grapes
gathering on her cheeks, or her soft wisps of hair curling into
tendrils, or spreading into green vine leaves. They usually came
home in the splendor of sunset, tired, happy, the red of Daphne's
felt hat, the gorgeousness of Bertuccio's blue trousers and
yellow waistcoat lighting the gloom of the cool, green-shaded
ways. Hermes always ran frisking to meet them, outstripping by
his swiftness the slow plodding of the little ass. Perhaps the
lambkin felt the shadow of a certain neglect through these long
absences, but at least he was generous and loved his rival.
Quitting the kitchen and dining-room, he chose for his portion