"I think we've got the best part of it here, Miss Gerald," Lanfear broke the common silence by saying. "You couldn't see much more of Possana after you got there." "Besides," her father ventured a pleasantry which jarred on the younger man, "if you were there with the doctor yesterday, you won't want to make the climb again to-day. Give it up, Nannie!" "Oh no," she said, "I can't give it up." "Well, then, we must go on, I suppose. Where do we begin our climb?" Lanfear explained that he had been obliged to leave his carriage at the foot of the hill, and climb to Possana Nuova by the donkey-paths of the peasants. He had then walked to the ruins of Possana Vecchia, but he suggested that they might find donkeys to carry them on from the new town. "Well, I hope so," Mr. Gerald grumbled. But at Possana Nuova no saddle-donkeys were to be had, and he announced, at the café where they stopped for the negotiation, that he would wait for the young people to go on to Possana Vecchia, and tell him about it when they got back. In the meantime he would watch the game of ball, which, in the piazza before the café, appeared to have engaged the energies of the male population. Lanfear was still inwardly demurring, when a stalwart peasant girl came in and announced that she had one donkey which they could have with her own services driving it. She had no saddle, but there was a pad on which the young lady could ride. "Oh, well, take it for Nannie," Mr. Gerald directed; "only don't be gone too long." They set out with Miss Gerald reclining in the kind of litter which the donkey proved to be equipped with. Lanfear went beside her, the peasant girl came behind, and at times ran forward to instruct them in the points they seemed to be looking at. For the most part the landscape opened beneath them, but in the azure distances it climbed into Alpine heights which the recent snows had now left to the gloom of their pines. On the slopes of the nearer hills little towns clung, here and there; closer yet farm-houses showed themselves among the vines and olives. It was very simple, as the life in it must always have been; and Lanfear wondered if the elemental charm of the scene made itself felt by his companion as they climbed the angles of the inclines, in a silence broken only by the picking of the donkey's hoofs on the rude mosaic of the pavement, and the panting of the peasant girl at its heels. On the top of the last upward stretch they stopped for the view, and Miss Gerald asked abruptly: "Why were you so sad?" "When was I sad?" he asked, in turn. "I don't know. Weren't you sad?" "When I was here yesterday, you mean?" She smiled on his fortunate guess, and he said: "Oh, I don't know. It might have begun with thinking-- 'Of old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago.'