“Sit down and rest, my dove,” said Dame Elsie to her little charge, as they entered their little inclosure.

Here she saw for the first time, what she had not noticed in the heat and hurry of her ascent, that the girl was panting and her gentle bosom rising and falling in thick heart-beats, occasioned by the haste with which she had drawn her onward.

“Sit down, dearie, and I will get you a bit of supper.”

“Yes, grandmother, I will.  I must tell my beads once for the soul of the handsome gentleman that kissed my forehead to-night.”

“How did you know that he was handsome, child?” said the old dame, with some sharpness in her voice.

“He bade me look on him, grandmother, and I saw it.”

“You must put such thoughts away, child,” said the old dame.

“Why must I?” said the girl, looking up with an eye as clear and unconscious as that of a three-year old child.

“If she does not think, why should I tell her?” said Dame Elsie, as she turned to go into the house, and left the child sitting on the mossy parapet that overlooked the gorge.  Thence she could see far off, not only down the dim, sombre abyss, but out to the blue Mediterranean beyond, now calmly lying in swathing-bands of purple, gold, and orange, while the smoky cloud that overhung Vesuvius became silver and rose in the evening light.

There is always something of elevation and parity that seems to come over one from being in an elevated region.  One feels morally as well as physically above the world, and from that clearer air able to look down on it calmly with disengaged freedom.  Our little maiden, sat for a few moments gazing, her large brown eyes dilating with a tremulous lustre, as if tears were half of a mind to start in them, and her lips apart with a delicate earnestness, like one who is pursuing some pleasing inner thought.  Suddenly rousing herself, she began by breaking the freshest orange-blossoms from the golden-fruited trees, and, kissing and pressing them to her bosom, she proceeded to remove the faded flowers of the morning from before a little rude shrine in the rock, where, in a sculptured niche, was a picture of the Madonna and Child, with a locked glass door in front of it.  The picture was a happy transcript of one of the fairest creations of the religious school of Florence, done by one of those rustic copyists of whom Italy is full, who appear to possess the instinct of painting, and to whom we owe many of those sweet faces which sometimes look down on us by the way-side from rudest and homeliest shrines.