“No, of course, you wouldn’t,” said Peripatetica resentfully. “And when we try to tell it to people at home they’ll simply say our style is ‘plushy.’ There’s nothing so resented as an attempt to carry back in words to a pale-coloured country the incredible splendours of the south. The critics always call it ‘orchid and cockatoo writing,’ and sulkily declare, whenever they do have a fairly nice colourful day, that they are sure the tropics have nothing finer, whereas, if they only knew, it is but an echo of an echo of the real thing, and—” but words failed even Peripatetica. On the breezy height, dominating all the deep-toned landscape, stood the Abbey church of Monreale—truly a royal mount, crowned by one of the finest shrines in Europe. The famous bronze doors of the main entrance had been oxidised by time and weather with a patine of greens and blues that lent subtle values to the bold delicate modelling of the metal, framed in a 244toothed doorway of warm, cream-tinted stone, whose magic harmony of colour was a fitting preliminary to the lofty glories of the interior. An unbelievable interior! faced throughout its three hundred and thirty-three feet of length with millions upon millions of tiny stones, gold and red and blue—stones of every colour. For all the interior they found, up to the very roof, was of this dim, glowing, gold-mosaic set with pictures of the Christian faith—the creation of Adam and Eve, the temptation by the Serpent, the casting out from Eden, the wrestling of Jacob, the whole Bible history, culminating above the altar in a gigantic Christ. More than 700,000 square feet of pictures made of bits of stone; and around and about pulpit, ambo, and altar, across steps and pavement, and enclosing every window and door, lovely mosaic patterns and devices, no two alike.... Brown-faced old peasants pushed aside the leathern curtain at the entrance and knelt, crossing themselves, in the shadow of enormous pillars, as their forebears had knelt and crossed themselves there for a thousand years. A mass droned from a side altar. Groups of young priests-in-the-making sauntered gossipping in whispers, or coming and going on ecclesiastic errands. Knots of tourists stared and wandered about the great spaces, and from behind the high altar rose boys’ voices at choir practice, echoing thin and pure from the painted roof.