Page:Daphne, an Autumn Pastoral.djvu/112

 on the life that had gone on in this Imperial villa two thousand years ago: its banquets, its philosophers' disputes, its tragedies and comedies played here with tears and laughter. In reality she was half asleep.

They were only a half mile from home, measuring by a straight line through the intervening hill; in time they were two hours away. San Pietro had climbed gallantly, with little silvery bells tinkling at his ears, to the summit of the mountain, and had descended, with conviction and with accuracy, planting firm little hard hoofs in the slippery path where the dark soil bore a coating of green grass and moss. For all their hard morning's work they were still on the confines of the Villa Gianelli, whose kingdom was partly a kingdom of air and of mountain.

Drowsing there in the old theatre in the sun, Daphne presently saw, stepping daintily through one of the entrances at the side, an audience of