“Oh,” said Lady Franks, “I had such a dreadful dream last night, such a dreadful dream.  It upset me so much.  I have not been able to get over it all day.”

“What was it?” said Aaron.  “Tell it, and break it.”

“Why,” said his hostess, “I dreamed I was asleep in my room—­just as I actually was—­and that it was night, yet with a terrible sort of light, like the dead light before dawn, so that one could see.  And my maid Giuseppina came running into my room, saying:  ’Signora!  Signora!  Si alza!  Subito!  Signora!  Vengono su!’—­and I said, ’Chi?  Chi sono chi vengono?  Chi?’—­’I Novaresi!  I Novaresi vengono su.  Vengono qui!’—­ I got out of bed and went to the window.  And there they were, in the dead light, rushing up to the house, through the trees.  It was so awful, I haven’t been able to forget it all day.”

“Tell me what the words are in English,” said Aaron.

“Why,” she said, “get up, get up—­the Novaresi, the people of Novara are coming up—­vengono su—­they are coming up—­the Novara people—­work-people.  I can’t forget it.  It was so real, I can’t believe it didn’t actually happen.”

“Ah,” said Aaron.  “It will never happen.  I know, that whatever one foresees, and FEELS has happened, never happens in real life.  It sort of works itself off through the imagining of it.”

“Well, it was almost more real to me than real life,” said his hostess.

“Then it will never happen in real life,” he said.

Luncheon passed, and coffee.  The party began to disperse—­Lady Franks to answer more letters, with the aid of Arthur’s wife—­some to sleep, some to walk.  Aaron escaped once more through the big gates.  This time he turned his back on the town and the mountains, and climbed up the hill into the country.  So he went between the banks and the bushes, watching for unknown plants and shrubs, hearing the birds, feeling the influence of a new soil.  At the top of the hill he saw over into vineyards, and a new strange valley with a winding river, and jumbled, entangled hills.  Strange wild country so near the town.  It seemed to keep an almost virgin wildness—­yet he saw the white houses dotted here and there.

Just below him was a peasant house:  and on a little loggia in the sun two peasants in white shirtsleeves and black Sunday suits were sitting drinking wine, and talking, talking.  Peasant youths in black hats, their sweethearts in dark stuff dresses, wearing no hat, but a black silk or a white silk scarf, passed slowly along the little road just below the ridge.  None looked up to see Aaron sitting there alone.  From some hidden place somebody was playing an accordion, a jerky sound in the still afternoon.  And away beyond lay the unchanging, mysterious valley, and the infolding, mysterious hills of Italy.