Elena was smiling brightly. Tacita gave a languid smile in return, and leaned back, looking out the window. The pines had ceased, and there was a rice-field at one side, and orange-trees heavily laden with ripe fruit at the other.
The oranges reminded her of Naples, which she had visited when a child. The blue bay and blue sky seemed to sparkle before her, the songs bubbled up, there was the soft splendor of profuse flowers, the fruits, the joy in life, the careless gayety; and, crowning these delights, that ever-present menace smoking up against the sky, telling of boiling rivers from a boiling pit of inextinguishable fire ever ready to overflow, bearing destruction to all that beauty.
“The utmost of earthly delight has ever its throne on the edge of a crater,” she thought.
The orange-trees pressed closer, right and left, there were blossoms with the fruit, and the western sun shone through both. The air was fresh and sweet. She saw nothing but glossy foliage and golden balls, and a green turf strown with gold.
“It is Andalusia, or the Hesperides!” she said, waking, and sitting up.
Even as she spoke, the green and gold wall came to an end, and at a little distance a whitewashed stone house was visible.
“Look!” exclaimed Elena; and leaning toward her, pointed upward out of the carriage window.
Behind the house, showing over its roof like a crown on a head, was a curve of olive-trees on a hill-top. Above the trees rose wild rocks in fantastic peaks and precipices, and above the rocks, closely serrated, was a range of Alp-like mountains upholding a mass of snow and ice that glittered rosily in the sunset.
“Is it your home?” asked Tacita eagerly. “How beautiful!”
“Not yet,” her friend answered, her eyes, filled with tears of joy, fixed on those shining heights. “But from my home those mountains are visible. To-morrow night I shall sleep under my own blessed roof!”