Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/147

 of the previous year she had gathered a great store, and dried them and kept them carefully. They were the only things she had to sell; they, and some score of baskets and mats that she had not given to Zefferino.

It was a grand day outside; such days as, here, deck October and November with a glory of colour and of luminance that make all other months of the year seem pale. It was such weather as made her always seck the open air from dawn to dark, beside the sea, or in the brakes and thickets where the wild boar hid.

She determined that she would go to Telamone and try and sell all she had, and bring him back some wine and _ better food. She was alarmed to see that he remained so weak. It seemed to her so unnatural that a man should lie all the day long listless and dumb with despair, and no more able to move than the pine-tree that the foresters slashed down with their hatchets.

She was alarmed, too, because food there was none, save a little of the oaten bread which she could eat but he could not. Unless she could buy flour she could get nothing better. Of fish he was weary, and