"Wait, Assunta," she said quietly, when she had finished, and she disappeared among the trees. In a minute she came back with three crimson roses, single, and yellow at the heart. "Will you take them with your wreaths for me to the Madonna?" she said, putting them into Assunta's hand. "I am more thankful than either one of you." CHAPTER XVI Assunta had carried a small tray out to the arbor in the garden, and Daphne was having her afternoon tea there alone. About her, on the frescoed walls of this little open-air pavilion, were grouped pink shepherds and shepherdesses, disporting themselves in airy garments of blue and green in a meadow that ended abruptly to make room for long windows. The girl leaned back and sipped her tea luxuriously. She was clad in a gown that any shepherdess among them might have envied, a pale yellow crepy thing shot through with gleams of gold. Before her the Countess Accolanti's silver service was set out on an inlaid Florentine table, partially protected by an open work oriental scarf. Upon it lay the letter that had come an hour before, and the Signorina now and then feasted her eyes upon it. Just outside the door was a bust of Masaccio, set on a tall pedestal, grass growing on the rough hair and heavy eyelids. Pavilion and tea-table seemed an odd bit of convention, set down in the neglected wildness of this old garden, and Daphne watched it all with entire satisfaction over her Sevres teacup. Presently she was startled by seeing Assunta come hurrying back with a teacup and saucer in one hand, a hot water jug in the other. The rapid Italian of excited moments Daphne never pretended to understand, consequently she gathered from Assunta's incoherent words neither names nor impressions, only the bare fact that a caller for the Countess Accolanti had rung the bell. "He inquired, too, for the Signorina," remarked the peasant woman finally, when her breath had nearly given out. "Do you know him?" asked Daphne. "Have you seen him before?" "But yes, thousands of times," said Assunta in a stage whisper. "See, he comes. I thought it best to say that he would find the Signorina in the garden. And the Signorina must pardon me for the card: I dropped it into the tea-kettle and it is wet, quite wet." Assunta had time to note with astonishment before she left that hostess and caller met as old friends, for the Signorina held out her hand in greeting before a word of introduction had been said. "I am told that your shepherd life is ended," remarked Daphne, as she filled the cup just brought. Neither her surprise nor her joy in his coming showed in her face. "For the present, yes." "You have won great devotion," said Daphne, smiling. "Only, they all mistake you for a Christian saint." "What does it matter?" said Apollo. "The feeling is the same."