When the tiny thorns were extracted and the young culprit properly reproved for her larceny, the clouds of the west had lost all their color but one lingering blush, and were beginning to catch the light of the moon, that was sailing through mid-air, as round as a bubble. They went down the winding avenue on foot, sending the carriage to wait for them in the street below. The trees over their heads were full of blossoms like little flies with black bodies and wide-spread, whitish wings, and through the heaps of these blossoms that had fallen they could see a green lizard slip now and then; the fountains plashed softly, lulling the day to sleep. Near the foot of the hill all the lower wall of one of the houses was hidden by skeins of brilliant, gold-colored silk, hung out to dry, perhaps, making a sort of sunshine in the shady street. It was a lovely drive home through the _Ave Marias_ ringing all about, through the alternate gloom and light of narrow streets and open _piazze_, where they spoke no word, but only looked about them with perhaps the same feeling in all their minds: “How good is our life――the mere living!” Not only the beauty they had seen and their own personal contentment pleased them; the richness and variety of the human element through which they passed gave them a sense of freedom, a fuller breath than they were accustomed to draw in a crowd. It was not a throng of people ground and smoothed into nearly the same habits and manners, but a going and coming and elbowing of individuals, many of whom retained the angles of their characters and manners in all their original sharpness. “The moon will be full to-morrow in honor of your _festa_,” Isabel said as they went into the house; “and there is a prospect that the roads may be sprinkled.” The roads were sprinkled with a vengeance; for the delectable mountains of sunset came up in the small hours and broke over the city in a torrent. There had not been such a tempest in Rome for years. It was impossible to sleep through it, and soon became impossible to lie in bed. Not all their closing of blinds and shutters could keep out the ceaseless flashes, and the windows rattled with the loud bursts of thunder. The three ladies dressed and went into the little _sala_, where the Signora lighted two blessed candles and sprinkled holy water, like the old-fashioned Catholic she was; and presently Mr. Vane joined them. “I should have expected to hear more cultivated thunders here,” he said. “These are Goths and Vandals.”