Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/131

 Tireless, she would wander over the grass and moss and thyme for hours and hours; even when the sun was so strong that the very cicalas themselves were silent against their wont, she felt no harm from it, and the fevers that lurked in bush and brake never touched her; in these calm solitary places, where she was alone with the powerful creatures, four-footed or winged, that slept beside her in the drowsy, sultry noons, she was at ease and happy. Even in the sickly drouth of midsummer, when the turf was like sheets of brass, and the very trees seemed to faint and pant, she was well here.

She tied her boat now to a tough shrub growing on the edge of the shore and began to go inland; a slender figure for her age, tall, brown, and lithe, with a proud dauntless carriage of her head and body, and eyes that seemed made like the eagle's to dart their light into the light of the sun.

The road she took now lay over the cliffs and across the moorland; although so much nobler and more beautiful than the marshy ground that stretched so drearily around Santa Tarsilla, it was not much healthier, for heavy vapours hung over it, and stagnant waters intersected it, but it