Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/52

 their troubles, which her own people had predicted, ceased to write to the châlet under the arolla forests.

They were homely people there on the pine-clad heights above Cogne, but there was always a homely plenty, and no penury touched them. They were good-hearted, but hard of mind and scanty in sympathy. She could never bring herself to tell them that she had married into poverty, and was sick to death of this fatal shore to which her Maremmano had brought her. So silence fell between her and her own family, and up on the mountain slopes that faced the Grand Paradis her brothers and sisters ceased to remember and ceased to regret her.

She slept a little now over her supper, being weary; she was woke by neighbours' voices; women were looking in at her window and tapping at it, being unable any longer to subdue their eagerness for news.

'Is it true that Saturnino has been taken, good mother?' they asked her.

'Ay, ay, why not?' she answered crossly. 'He has been taken.'

'Did you see him in Grosseto?'

'Yes, the poor soul! with his legs tied under the horse's belly.'