beginning to glaze. Two tears dropped on the fat white side;
then Daphne bent and kissed him. Looking up, she saw San Pietro
gazing on with the usual grief of his face intensified. It was
as if he understood that the place at his back where the lamb had
cuddled every night must go cold henceforward.

"We must bury him, San Pietro," said Daphne presently. "Come
help me find a place."

She put the lambkin gently down upon the ground, and, rising,
started, with one arm over San Pietro's neck, to find a burial
place for the dead. The donkey followed willingly, for he
permitted himself to love his lady with a controlled but genuine
affection; and together they searched by the light of the firefly
lamp. At last Daphne halted by a diminutive cypress, perhaps two
feet high, and announced that she was content.

The tool-house was not far away. Investigating, she found, as
she had hoped, that the door was not locked. Arming herself with
a hoe she came back, and, under the light of southern stars, dug
a little grave in the soft, dark earth, easily loosened in its
crumbling richness. Then she took the lamp and searched in the
deep thick grass for flowers, coming back with a mass of
pink-tipped daisies gathered in her skirt. The sight of the
brown earth set her to thinking: there ought to be some kind of
shroud. Near the tool-house grew a laurel tree, she remembered,
and from that she stripped a handful of green, glossy leaves, to
spread upon the bottom of the grave. This done, she bore the
body of Hermes to his resting-place, and strewed the corpse with
pink daisies.