Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/136

 sea, with the bronze aryballos poised upon her head, as he had seen her stand a hundred times before him. On the rough clay of the base he had scratched Glauca as her name. His work was both graceful and noble; it had truth to nature and a beautiful youthfulness in it. He who had only idled now and then with clay in the Lombard studios of friendly students was both amazed and proud that he could now call so much life out of the grey earth that the Ombrone washed daily towards the sea.

'Is it like me, indeed?' she said for the twentieth time as she looked timidly at it. 'I see my bare feet, and the ribbon-weed in the sand, and the bronze jar; but all the rest—can it be like me?'

And he told her for the twentieth time—

'It is like you if grey clay can be like a living flower.'

She looked at it doubtingly, unable to believe in any flattery so sweet as this. Then she said to him:

'You will be glad to know that Saturnino Mastarna has got safe away from Orbetello; he has crossed over to Sardinia;