The signorina had dropped to the grass, at a short step from the Chief, to whom her face was now seriously given.  In Ammiani’s sight she looked a dark Madonna, with the sun shining bright gold through the edges of the summer hat, thrown back from her head.  The full and steady contemplative eyes had taken their fixed expression, after a vanishing affectionate gaze of an instant cast upon Agostino.  Attentive as they were, light played in them like water.  The countenance was vivid in repose.  She leaned slightly forward, clasping the wrist of one hand about her knee, and the sole of one little foot showed from under her dress.

Deliberately, but with no attempt at dramatic impressiveness, the Chief began to speak.  He touched upon the condition of Italy, and the new lilt animating her young men and women.  “I have heard many good men jeer,” he said, “at our taking women to our counsel, accepting their help, and putting a great stake upon their devotion.  You have read history, and you know what women can accomplish.  They may be trained, equally as we are, to venerate the abstract idea of country, and be a sacrifice to it.  Without their aid, and the fire of a fresh life being kindled in their bosoms, no country that has lain like ours in the death-trance can revive.  In the death-trance, I say, for Italy does not die!”

“True,” said other voices.

“We have this belief in the eternal life of our country, and the belief is the life itself.  But let no strong man among us despise the help of women.  I have seen our cause lie desperate, and those who despaired of it were not women.  Women kept the flame alive.  They worship in the temple of the cause.”

Ammiani’s eyes dwelt fervidly upon the signorina.  Her look, which was fastened upon the Chief, expressed a mind that listened to strange matter concerning her very little.  But when the plans for the rising of the Bergamascs and Brescians, the Venetians, the Bolognese, the Milanese, all the principal Northern cities, were recited, with a practical emphasis thrown upon numbers, upon the readiness of the organized bands, the dispositions of the leaders, and the amount of resistance to be expected at the various points indicated for the outbreak, her hands disjoined, and she stretched her fingers to the grass, supporting herself so, while her extended chin and animated features told how eagerly her spirit drank at positive springs, and thirsted for assurance of the coming storm.

“It is decided that Milan gives the signal,” said the Chief; and a light, like the reflection of a beacon-fire upon the night, flashed over her.