“The Saffron Mass of Concordia” 198 “Lifting Themselves Airily From a Sea of Flowers” 218 “Sicily’s Picture-book, The Painted Cart” 234 “The Last Resting Place of Queen Constance” 248 15 SEEKERS IN SICILY CHAPTER I   On the Road to the Land of the Gods “He ne’er is crown’d with immortality Who fears to follow where airy voices lead.” “Oh, Persephone, Persephone!... Surely Koré is in Hell.” This is a discouraged voice from the window. “Peripatetica, that sounds both insane and improper. Would it fatigue you too much to explain in the vernacular what you are trying, in your roundabout way, to suggest?” Thus Jane, a mere diaphanous mauve cloud, from which the glimmering fire picked out glittering points here and there. When Jane takes to teagowns she is really very dressy. Peripatetica strolled up and down the dusky drawing-room two or three times, without answering. Outside a raging wind drove furiously before it in the darkness the snow that flew upward in long spirals, like desperate hunted ghosts. Finally she took up a book from the 16table, and kneeling, to get the light from the logs on the page, began to read aloud. These two were on such kindly terms that either one could read aloud without arousing the other to open violence. “Persephone, sometimes called Koré—” read Peripatetica, “having been seized by Pluto, as she gathered narcissus, and wild thyme, and mint, and the violet into her green kirtle—was carried, weeping very bitterly, into his dark hell. And Demeter, her mother, missing her fair and sweet-curled daughter, sought her through all the world with tears and ravings; the bitter sound and moisture of her grief making a noise as of winter wind and rain. And her warm heart being so cold with pain the blossoms died on her bosom, and her vernal hair was shredded abroad into the air, and all growing things drooped and perished, and her brown benignant face became white as the face of the dead are white——” Peripatetica closed the book, put it back on the table, and drew a hassock under her for a seat. “I see,” said Jane. “Demeter is certainly passing this way to-night, poor dear! It’s a pity she can’t realize Persephone, that sweet soul of Spring, will come back. She always does come back.” “Yes; but Demeter, the mother-earth, always fears that this time she may not; that Pluto will keep her in hell always. And every time she makes the same outcry about it.” “I suppose she always finds her first in Enna,” Jane hazarded. “Isn’t Enna in Sicily?” “Yes, I think so; but I don’t know much about Sicily, though everybody goes there nowadays. Let’s go there, Jane, and help Demeter find Persephone.” 17“Let’s!” agreed Jane, with sympathetic enthusiasm, and they went.