Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/121

 hills, in the Etruscan grave it was cool and twilight always.

Once she went to the shore to gather mussels and take them home for him; they would cook in the wood-ashes, and he would tell her the while of Petronius, of Apicius, of Lucullus, of all that luxurious life of Rome, of Greater Greece, and of the otiosa Neapolis.

She took off her shoes and kilted her skirt, and waded almost knee-deep in the shallow sea-water, while the shore beside her was fragrant with the rosemary and the southernwood, and the seapinks were blowing like little puffs of rosy cloud, and a kingfisher, all azure and emerald in the sun, did not fly away at her approach, but went on with his own fishing and meditations.

She gathered her harvest of the sea, and found a few oysters, too, in amongst the rocks and the sea-fennel. The water was blue as the kingfisher's breast, a sweet west wind was stirring it; in the clear air Elba stood forth like a giant's castle in tales of magic; above head the rock-doves and the rock-martins were wheeling and soaring amongst the golden motes of the sunbeams.