Page:Daphne, an Autumn Pastoral.djvu/106

 upward to the site of a buried town, where only mound and gray fragment of stone marked garden and forum. Here was a bit of wall, with a touch of gay painting mouldering on an inner surface,—Venus, in robe of red, rising from a daintily suggested sea in lines of green. They gathered fragments of old mosaic floor in their hands, blue lapis lazuli, yellow bits of giallo antico, red porphyry, trodden by gay feet and sad, unnumbered years ago. They found broken pieces of iridescent glass that had fallen, perhaps, from shattered wine cups of the emperors, and all these treasures Bertuccio stored away in his wide pockets. Again, they climbed gracious heights and looked down over slopes and valleys, where deep grass grew over rich, crumbling earth, deposit of dead volcanoes, or saw, circled by soft green hills, some mountain lake, reflecting the perfect blue of Italian sky.

Bertuccio usually walked behind; Daphne rode on ahead, with the sun burning her cheeks,