Lady Niton's sarcasms recurred to her. She was not sure whether she welcomed or disliked the idea. But, after all, why not? CHAPTER XVI "Ecco, Signorina! il Convento!" The driver reined up his horse, pointing with his whip. Diana and Muriel Colwood stood up eagerly in the carriage, and there at the end of the long white road, blazing on the mountain-side, terrace upon terrace, arch upon arch, rose the majestic pile of buildings which bears the name of St. Francis. Nothing else from this point was to be seen of Assisi. The sun, descending over the mountain of Orvieto, flooded the building itself with a level and blinding light, while upon Monte Subasio, behind, a vast thunder-cloud, towering in the southern sky, threw storm-shadows, darkly purple, across the mountain-side, and from their bosom the monastery, the churches, and those huge substructures which make the platform on which the convent stands, shone out in startling splendor. The travellers gazed their fill, and the carriage clattered on. As they neared the town and began to climb the hill Diana looked round her--at the plain through which they had come, at the mountains to the east, at the dome of the Portiuncula. Under the rushing light and shade of the storm-clouds, the blues of the hills, the young green of the vines, the silver of the olives, rose and faded, as it were, in waves of color, impetuous and magnificent. Only the great golden building, crowned by its double church, most famous of all the shrines of Italy, glowed steadily, amid the alternating gleam and gloom--fit guardian of that still living and burning memory which is St. Francis. "We shall be happy here, sha'n't we?" said Diana, stealing a hand into her companion's. "And we needn't hurry away."