As she grew up everybody said of her: “She is going to be a saint, a saint.” Her name was Margherita Cornado. She lived in Girgenti on the south side of Sicily, in the great mining district. When she was a child her father was a miner; later he inherited a little money, so that he no longer needed to work. There was a little, narrow, miserable roof-garden on Margherita Cornado’s house in Girgenti. A small and steep stairway led up to it, and one had to creep out through a low door. But it was well worth the trouble. When you reached the top you saw not only a mass of roofs, but the whole air over the town was gaily crowded with the towers and façades of all Girgenti’s churches. And every façade and every tower was a quivering lace-work of images, of loggias, of glowing canopies. And outside the town there was a wide plain which sloped gently down towards the sea, and a semicircle of hills that guarded the plain. The plain was glittering red; the ocean was blue as enamel; the hillsides were yellow; it was a whole orient of warmth and color. But there was even more to be seen. Ancient temples were dotted about the valley. Ruins and strange old towers were everywhere, as in a fairy world. As Margherita Cornado grew up, she used to spend most of her days there; but she never looked out over the dazzling landscape. She was occupied with other things. Her father used to tell her of the life in the sulphur mines at Grotte, where he had worked. While Margherita Cornado sat on the airy terrace, she thought that she was incessantly walking about the dark mine veins, and finding her way through dim shafts. She could not help thinking of all the misery that existed in the mines; especially she thought of the children, who carried the ore up to the surface. “The little wagons,” they called them. That expression never left her mind. Poor, poor little wagons, the little mine-wagons! They came in the morning, and each followed a miner down into the mine. As soon as he had dug out enough ore, he loaded the mine-wagon with a basket of it, and then the latter began to climb. Several of them met on the way, so that there was a long procession. And they began to sing:-- “One journey made in struggling and pain, Nineteen times to be travelled again.” When they finally reached the light of day, they emptied their baskets of ore and threw themselves on the ground to rest a moment. Most of them dragged themselves over to the sulphurous pools near the shaft of the mine and drank the pestiferous water. But they soon had to go down again, and they gathered at the mouth of the mine. As they clambered down, they cried: “Lord and God, have mercy, have mercy, have mercy!” Every journey the little wagons made, their song grew more feeble. They groaned and cried as they crawled up the paths of the mine. The little wagons were bathed in perspiration; the baskets of ore ground holes in their shoulders. As they went up and down they sang:--