Lady Niton's sarcasms recurred to her. She was not sure whether she
welcomed or disliked the idea. But, after all, why not?
CHAPTER XVI
"Ecco, Signorina! il Convento!"
The driver reined up his horse, pointing with his whip.
Diana and Muriel Colwood stood up eagerly in the carriage, and there at
the end of the long white road, blazing on the mountain-side, terrace
upon terrace, arch upon arch, rose the majestic pile of buildings which
bears the name of St. Francis. Nothing else from this point was to be
seen of Assisi. The sun, descending over the mountain of Orvieto,
flooded the building itself with a level and blinding light, while upon
Monte Subasio, behind, a vast thunder-cloud, towering in the southern
sky, threw storm-shadows, darkly purple, across the mountain-side, and
from their bosom the monastery, the churches, and those huge
substructures which make the platform on which the convent stands, shone
out in startling splendor.
The travellers gazed their fill, and the carriage clattered on.
As they neared the town and began to climb the hill Diana looked round
her--at the plain through which they had come, at the mountains to the
east, at the dome of the Portiuncula.
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