Page:Daphne, an Autumn Pastoral.djvu/22

 and curving cheek,—all the girl's sensitive being seemed struggling to accept the gift of beauty before her, almost too great to grasp.

"After this," she said half aloud, her far glance resting on Rome in the hazy distance, "anything is possible."

"I don't seem real," she added, touching her left hand with the forefinger of her right. "It is Italy, Italy, and that is Rome. Can all this exist within two weeks of the rush and jangle of Broadway?"

There was no answer, and she half closed her eyes, intoxicated with beauty.

A live thing darted across her foot, and she looked down to catch a glimpse of something like a slender green flame licking its way through the grass.

"Lizards crawling over me unrebuked," she said smiling. "Perhaps the millenium has come."

She picked two grass blades and a single fern.