"A little of the valley," I answered. Then I raised my hand too. "There are the mountains, Penelope, and just before them the ridge over which we rode that morning. Do you remember it? Do you remember how Nathan ran away over the trail, how you clung to me and called to me to save you? Home should be down there where you see the village. Do you remember----" Penelope was looking from me, as though at the stone house, its roof just showing in the green of giant oaks. Again she raised her hand. "And the barn, David--the big white barn--there!" she cried. Then she checked herself. She was very straight and very still. "I was forgetting," she said. A step closer and I said: "You do remember, Penelope!" "I must be going," she returned in a low voice, but she did not move. I feared to speak now lest I should awaken her from the revery in which she seemed to have suddenly forgotten my existence. "I must be going," she said again, and still she did not move. She was looking across our valley! I knew that she saw it as on the morning when we rode in terror from the woods and it lay beneath us, a friendly land, in the broad day, under the kindly eye of God. Then I bent nearer her, an arm resting on the wall, my eyes on her averted face, patiently waiting until she should speak. And I could wait patiently now, for I believed that in the silence the memory of that day was fighting for me. After a long time Penelope spoke. "David, do you remember--" She paused. Her voice fell to a whisper. "What was it that you said to me that morning--don't you remember?--don't cry, little one!" In all the world there is no fairer prospect than that on which I looked from the little terrace in Perugia. For I saw not alone the lovely Umbrian plain. Before me stretched a fair life itself, into the unending years, from that moment when Penelope spoke, turning as she spoke and looking up at me with a smiling face. What a blind, blundering creature I had been! The black-gloved hand was close to mine on the wall, and I took it. Then I leaned down to her and said: "I remember, Penelope, and I will--I will take care of you always." CHAPTER XXVII "Yesterday, Harry, your mother laid a hand upon my arm, and, turning to me with a curious, far-away light in her eyes, said: 'How time flies, David!'" And I looked down at her proudly, as though this were another of the innumerable new and clever ideas which she has a way of discovering and expressing so concisely. "What made you think of that, Penelope?" She pointed over the tangled briers to the woods, to the very spot where the path breaks through the bushes and leads to the brook. "Yesterday, David--it seems but yesterday--I dragged you out of the deep pool, and to-day--a moment ago--I heard Harry there, shouting." "He has probably caught a trout," said I as I lighted a cigar. "A small boy always shouts when he lands a fish." Penelope laughed.