Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/322

 She was as thankful as a dog; she dragged her treasure up over the rocks out of the wet sand in which it was bedded bows downward, and hid it in a little aperture she knew of in the cliffs within a few yards of the water.

With this boat for her use when she would, she felt strong and free as any osprey. It was another means of livelihood also; she could make a net, and catch a fish, as well as any man of the sea hamlets; in the hill-villages they never tasted fish, their few folk were too far off and too lazy by far to drag their limbs a dozen miles down to the beach at any time, and the shore folk were too indolent and too feeble to go to them. But she, who was neither idle nor weak, determined to carry fish to the hovels of the plains and hills if she were ever pressed for hunger, and get their bread and dead goat's flesh in return. So she said to herself as she hauled up the boat over the stones, though she would never take the lives even of the fish if she could help it. And she felt satisfied, having her future thus provided for; it seemed to her as if she could live thus so easily all her days.

With the winter, she clothed herself in the