Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/120

 day had sunk away into evening before the boat returned; the splendour of the Capri moonlight was on sea and land, on the grey terraces of olives, with their silvery plumes of foliage, and on the green vines, clustering in the early summer over the steep stairs of rock and the stones of high monastic walls. As they passed up the winding ascent, an old peasant, sitting watching for the boat under the orange-boughs, a nut-brown, withered Capriote woman, of full seventy years, started from the shadow in Idalia’s path, and fell on her knees before her, pouring out on her gratitude and benedictions. Idalia stooped and raised her:

“Do not kneel to me, old friend. You owe me nothing.”

“I owe you my children’s life, my children’s souls!” cried the Italian, in the patois of the bay,