Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/60

 appended to the fact a fiction of a daughter whose infant was dead, and who needed one to suckle.

'A little lie is always useful,' thought Joconda, though she was not a false or a faithless woman.

Then she lost sight of the foaming, turbulent Fiora, and began her climb towards the mountain summits. The ways were very steep and very long; night overtook her. She took shelter in an empty hut of a shepherd, and ate and drank out of her wallet, and slept not ill, for she was tired and not timorous.

The great lonely mountain-side, with the water freshets of autumn tearing down it to swell the Fiora water, was about her when she awoke. She could not see the rock she wanted above her, a grey speck under the snows. She was stiff, and felt as if she were frozen from sleeping out of her bed on the damp leaves; but she resumed her upward way. It was again noon when she passed the last robur-oak and cork trees and came up amidst wind-wasted pines and boulders of granite and slate, tossed about on a wild mountain scarp; as if in the horseplay of giants,