Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/308

 dulgent to him with that indulgence of the strong to the weak which is often misunderstood, abused, and preyed upon by the feeble. She knew that he told lies by the hundred, and pilfered when he could, and had no more real heart in him than the red and white pumpkin that keeps the beauty of its quaint shell whilst the summer sun has sucked up all its pulp inside it. Yet he was loving and lovable in his own way, and Musa, who thought he loved her, was glad to see him always as she was glad to see the birds and flowers.

They were more truly her companions, however, than he. She was always in the air, except when the sudden and frequent storms of the Maremma drove her perforce into the shelter of the sepulchre, although the 'bolt-hurling gods' of the tempests had no terror for her as they had had for the Tyrrhenian multitude who had seen divine wrath in every electric flash, and heard imprecation and prophecy in every roll of thunder that echoed from the Apennine to the Ciminian hills.

The white straight rain, the slanting wind-blown showers, the blackness of hurrying storm-charged cloud, the strange yellow light