"He smiled and talked most kindly, and when he went away--the Signorina understands?" Daphne nodded. "He gave his hand to Antoli," said Giacomo breathlessly. "I will make the wreath," said the Signorina, smiling. "It shall be of these," and she held up a handful of pink daisies, mingled with bits of fern and ivy leaves. "Assunta shall take it to the church when she takes hers. I rejoice that you are well," she added, turning to Antoli with a polite sentence from the phrase-book. As she worked on after they were gone, Assunta came to her again. "The Signorina heard?" she asked. "Si. Is the story true?" asked Daphne. Assunta's eyes were full of hidden meaning. "The Signorina ought to know." "Why?" "Has not the Signorina seen the blessed one herself?" she asked. "I?" said Daphne, starting. "The night the lambkin was killed, did not the Signorina go out in great distress, and did not the blessed one come to her aid?" "Ma che!" exclaimed Daphne faintly, falling back, in her astonishment, upon Assunta's vocabulary. "I have told no one, not even Giacomo," said Assunta, "but I saw it all. The noise had wakened me, and I followed, but I stopped when I saw that the divine one was there. Only I watched from the clump of cypress trees." "Where was he?" asked Daphne with unsteady voice. "Beyond the laurel trees," said Assunta. "Did not the Signorina see?" The girl shook her head. "How did you know that he was one of the divine?" she asked. "Can I not tell the difference between mortal man and one of them?" cried the peasant woman scornfully. "It was the shining of his face, and the light about his hair, Signorina. Every look and every motion showed that he was not of this world. Besides, how could I see him in the dark if he were not the blessed Saint Sebastian? And who sent the dog away if it was not he?" she added triumphantly. "But why should he appear to me?" asked Daphne. "I have no claim upon the help of the saints." "Perhaps because the Signorina is a heretic," answered Assunta tenderly. "Our Lady must have special care for her if she sends out the holy ones to bring her to the fold." The woman's face was alight with reverence and pride, and Daphne turned back to her flowers, shamed by these peasant folk for their belief in the immanence of the divine. Half an hour later Assunta reappeared, clad in Sunday garments, wearing her best coral earrings and her little black silk shoulder shawl covered with gay embroidered flowers. She held out a letter to the girl. "I go to take the wreaths to Our Lady," she announced, "and to confess and pray. The Signorina has made them pretty, if they are but common things." Daphne was reading her letter; even the peasant woman could see that it bore glad tidings, for the light that broke in the girl's face was like the coming of dawn over the hills.