Under the rushing light and shade
of the storm-clouds, the blues of the hills, the young green of the
vines, the silver of the olives, rose and faded, as it were, in waves of
color, impetuous and magnificent. Only the great golden building,
crowned by its double church, most famous of all the shrines of Italy,
glowed steadily, amid the alternating gleam and gloom--fit guardian of
that still living and burning memory which is St. Francis.
"We shall be happy here, sha'n't we?" said Diana, stealing a hand into
her companion's. "And we needn't hurry away."
She drew a long breath. Muriel looked at her tenderly--enchanted
whenever the old enthusiasm, the old buoyancy reappeared. They had now
been in Italy for nearly two months. Muriel knew that for her companion
the time had passed in one long wrestle for a new moral and spiritual
standing-ground. All the glory of Italy had passed before the girl's
troubled eyes as something beautiful but incoherent, a dream landscape,
on which only now and then her full consciousness laid hold. For to the
intenser feeling of youth, full reality belongs only to the world
within; the world where the heart loves and suffers.
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