The Gesu Monastery has no such sanguinary associations. The plain little building, high on the hillside, stands buried among enormous cypresses and clouds of roses, and surrounded by the massive marble tombs and mortuary chapels of Palermo’s nobility and Sicily’s magnates. It is a place of great peace and silence. A place of unutterable beauty of outlook upon gorges feathered with pines, upon stern violet mountains melting into more distant heights of amethyst, into outlines of hyacinth, into silhouettes of mauve, into high ghostly shadows that vanish into floods of aerial blue. A place which looks on sea and shore and city, and where the chemistry of sun and air 280transmutes the multitudinous tones of the landscape to an incredible witchery of tint, to living hues like those of the colours of jewels, of flowers, of the little burning feathers of the butterflies’ wings. “Doubtless God might have made a more beautiful view than this from the Gesu, but doubtless God never did,” sighed Jane. But still Gaspero is not satisfied. He can never rest content with anything less than perfection. Yes; he admits the Gesu is admirable, but he knows a still more “molto bella vista.” “There is nothing better than the best,” says Jane sententiously. “I am drenched and satiated with all the loveliness that I can bear. Any other ‘vista’ would be an anticlimax.” “Dear Jane,” remonstrated Peripatetica, “haven’t you yet guessed that Gaspero is a wizard? I suspected it the very first day. Of course, you can see that he’s no ordinary guide and cab-driver, and, as a matter of fact, I don’t believe there are any such sights as the ones we think he has showed us. You’ve been on Broadway? Well, can you lay your hand on your heart, and honestly affirm that when you are there again you won’t at once realize that there never were such beauties as these we’ve been seeing? Won’t you know then that this is all a glamour—a hypnotic suggestion of Gaspero’s mind upon ours?” “Don’t be ridiculous!” snapped Jane. “What is all this rhodomontade leading to?” “To a desire to follow the wizard,” answered Peripatetica recklessly. “Whither Gaspero goeth I go! I am fully prepared to wallow in glamours, and besides we’ve luncheon in our basket, so don’t be tiresome, 281Jane. Let’s abandon the commonplace and ‘follow the Gleam.’” “Very well,” laughed Jane, climbing into the carriage. “Gaspero and ‘gleam’ if you like.”