Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/268

 is sorrow and poverty; of toil as Millet has painted it and modern eyes seen it. Hers was the old, glad, rural, health-giving, open-air labour of the Italiote pastorella, of the Greek girl treading, with feet winged by youth, the honey-scented herbs and the wild ivy of Mount Ida.

The world has lost the secret of making labour a joy; but Nature has given it to a few. Where the maidens dance the saltarello under the deep Sardinian forests, and the honey and the grapes are gathered beneath the snowy sides of Etna, and the oxen walk up to their loins in flowing grass where the long aisles of pines grow down the Adrian shore, this wood-magic is known still of the old, sweet, simple charm of the pastoral life.

Some wistful thought of the sort crossed the mind of Sanctis as he saw her approach. After all, what was it he wanted to force on her? Constraint for freedom, formality for fawn-like ease, the breath of crowds for the flower-fragrance of the fields, the midnight oil of anxious study or of feverish pleasure for the gracious night of a slumbering earth fresh with dews, unvexed with noise, stirred only at dawn by whisperings of birds.