"Should he have Christian or heathen burial?" she asked, smiling.
"This seems to be a place where the two faiths meet. I think
neither. He must just be given back to Mother Nature."

She heaped the sod over him with her own hands, and fitted neatly
together some bits of turf. Then she took up her lamp to go. San
Pietro, tired of ceremony, was grazing in the little circle of
light.

"To-morrow," said Daphne, as she went down the hill, "he will be
eating grass from Hermes' grave."


CHAPTER XV

The shadow of branching palms fell on the Signorina's hair and
hands as she sat at work near the fountain in the garden weaving
a great wreath of wild cyclamen and of fern gathered from the
hillside. Assunta was watching her anxiously, her hands resting
on her hips.

"It's a poor thing to offer the Madonna," she said at length,
"just common things that grow."

Daphne only smiled at her and went on winding white cord about
the stems under green fronds where it could not be seen.

"I was ready to buy a wreath of beautiful gauze flowers from
Rome," ventured Assunta, "all colors, red and yellow and purple.