Lucia’s dress was like that of the other peasant women, and consisted of a red silk kerchief tied closely over the head; another of yellow, which covered her shoulders, was crossed over her chest and tied behind; and a green woollen gown. Her beautiful black hair was smoothly braided in one long thick plait, which hung down her back. So far there was nothing remarkable about her costume; but she also wore what was peculiar to herself, a leather belt with a metal sheath and a large gardening knife stuck in it. She kept her hand almost constantly upon this weapon, a circumstance which gave her a rather savage Amazon-like appearance, strangely at variance with her calm madonna face, and smooth hair. But as the mule jogged on through the fresh morning air, and Lucia watched the golden sunlight playing on the rocks above and the fields below, her thoughts were anything but savage, for she was saying to herself, “Who would think that human beings could be so wicked when one sees how beautiful and peaceful, and happy everything is? They don’t notice it, for they are like animals still; they live like wild beasts. It is different in towns; it is better even in Palene, but how very different it must be in Rome, or Florence, or Naples! There, so I have read, people are good and gentle, and forgiving. They don’t love like wolves and hate like tigers. I know just one man myself, but then he is a foreigner, and they would be certain to kill him if I married him. Couldn’t we escape to Rome?” pursued the maiden thoughtfully, bending her body down over the mule. “But no,” she went on, “they would find him out even in Rome, and one fine day he would be found dead and I should have murdered him.” The mule, finding that his mistress was not paying any heed to him, now stood quite still and put down his head to crop a few mouthfuls of grass. But this roused Lucia from her dreams, and taking hold of the reins and uttering a loud “Aia!” she put him to a quicker pace, and in a few minutes more they had reached the end of their journey. The little town of Palene consists of three narrow streets, a small market-place, a municipal building, and a tolerably large and handsome church. Facing the market-place are two houses rather superior to the rest, which are painted pink and blue, and have bright green blinds. One of the two, at the time of which we are writing, was a shop kept by a man named Lugeno, who called himself a “general-dealer, barber, coffee-house and tavern keeper.” In front of the shop stood a table and four chairs, while baskets of fruit and vegetables stood about the entrance, and over the door hung half-a-dozen cages containing canary birds.