CHAPTER XXVII. MARTIANUS. The little community that remained in the neighbourhood of the villa after the departure of the Count and his household had plenty to occupy their thoughts and hands. The Count had behaved with a liberality and a discretion that were both equally characteristic of him. All the stock of what may be called the home farm, all the agricultural implements, the cattle, sheep, and pigs, and as much of the stores of corn that he could spare, he had made over to the priest and two other principal persons in the settlement for the benefit of the community at large. This was an excellent start, and removed all immediate anxiety for the future. The stores of provisions had been increased by opportune purchases before the resolution to go had been taken, and enough was left to last, if managed with due economy, over the coming winter. Carna found plenty of employment of the kind in which she found her greatest pleasure. There was indeed a terrible gap in her life; not only had she lost those whom she had loved all her life as father and sister, but her intellectual interests had dropped away from her. Many of the books at the villa had indeed been left with her, but then there was no one to whom to talk about them. The old priest never opened a volume except it was a service book; his wife could not even read. But the time never hung heavily upon her hands, for there was plenty of work to do among the sick and sorry. As the autumn went on an epidemic, which a modern doctor would probably have described as measles, broke out among the children, and Carna spent her days and nights in ministering to the little sufferers. The one relief that she allowed herself—and there was no little sadness mixed with the pleasure which it gave her—was to spend an hour, when she could snatch one from her many cares, in the deserted rooms of the villa. The indulgence was rare, not only because her leisure was infrequent, but because she was conscious of feeling somewhat relaxed after it for the effort of her daily life; but when it came it was precious. Not a room, not a picture on the walls, not a pattern in the tesselated pavements, that did not call up a hundred associations, and make the past in which she had enjoyed so much happiness live again in her fancy. The dwelling was under the charge of an old couple, who gladly kept it clean in exchange for the shelter of two or three of the rooms, and Carna was free to wander about it as she would, while she felt a certain security in the knowledge that the place was not wholly deserted.