"There must be a treasure here also!" he thought, and hurried to tell his new fancy to Olì. Spring now reigned over the wild country. Elderflowers were reflected in the blue river; voluptuous fragrance rose from the warm grass. In the clear moonlit nights, so soft, so silent, it seemed as though the vibrating air were an intoxicating love-philtre. Olì roamed hither and thither, her eyes misty with passion. In the long luminous twilight, in the dazzling noons, when the distant mountains melted into the sky, her pensive look followed her little brothers, who, half naked and dark as bronze statuettes, made the meadows merry with their bird-like pipings; and she thought of the day when she must leave them to go forth with Anania. For she had seen the gold ring of his finding, and she was filled with hope, and her blood boiled with the poison of the spring. "Olì!" called Anania from the depths of the thicket. She trembled, advanced cautiously, fell into the young man's arms. They seated themselves on the warm grass, beside bushes of pennyroyal and wild laurel which exhaled strong perfume. "I was almost prevented coming!" said the youth; "the mistress has been brought to bed of a daughter; and my wife has gone up to help, and wanted me to stay at home. 'No,' I told her, 'I've got to pick the pennyroyal and the laurel to-night. Have you forgotten it's Midsummer Eve?' So here I am." He fumbled at his breast, while Olì touched the laurel and asked what it was good for. "Don't you know? Laurel gathered to-night is for medicine, and has other virtues too. If you strew leaves of laurel here and there round the wall of a vineyard or a sheepfold, no wild animal can get in to gnaw the grapes or to carry off the lambs." "But you aren't a shepherd, are you?" "I want it for my master's vineyard; for the threshing-floor too, or the ants will steal the grain. Won't you come when I'm beating out the grain? There'll be lots of people: it's a holiday, and at night there'll be singing." "Oh, my father wouldn't let me go," she said with a sigh. "How stupid of him! it's clear he doesn't know my wife. She's decrepit--worn out like these stones! Wherever have I put it?" said Anania, still fumbling. "Put what? your wife?" laughed Olì. "A cross. I've found a silver cross this time." "A silver cross? Where you found the ring? And you never told me?" "Ah, here it is! See, it's real silver!" He drew a packet from his arm hole. Olì opened it, touched the little cross, and asked anxiously-- "Is it really silver? Then the treasure must be there!" She looked so pleased that Anania, who had found the cross in quite a different place, thought it best to leave her to her illusion. "Yes, there in the garden. Who knows all the precious things there may be! I shall have a search at night." "But won't the treasure belong to your master?"