Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/151

 set the lilies in the pools,' said the child wearily.

Joconda sighed and stared.

'Aye, there is nothing to make Him glad in any of us. The wicked never cease from troubling, and the whitest souls are but greyish and spotted, like a fungus in a wood. Sometimes I have thought myself He must repent. But I talk wickedly. Have you lain in moonlight, child, that you say such odd things?'

Musa was silent.

'I think those people are my kindred,' she said under her breath to Joconda, who replied:

'Well, they may be; no one knows whence you come;' and said to herself, to excuse the lie to her conscience, 'and no one does, for I never heard tell who Serapia's people were; some said one thing and some another.'

'But how did I come to you?' said Musa, with that direct question which Joconda had always dreaded.

'I picked you up on the hills in chestnut-time,' said Joconda; and said to herself, 'and that certainly is true.'

Musa asked no more. Her thoughts