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under the mountain that seemed a colossal embodiment of silence. Never
before had Giorgio seen this bit of plain so full of active life; his
gaze could not take in all its details at once; he shaded his eyes with
his hand, till suddenly the thundering of many hoofs near by startled
him.
A troop of horses had broken out of the fenced paddock of the Railway
Company. They came on like a whirlwind, and dashed over the line
snorting, kicking, squealing in a compact, piebald, tossing mob of bay,
brown, grey backs, eyes staring, necks extended, nostrils red, long
tails streaming. As soon as they had leaped upon the road the thick dust
flew upwards from under their hoofs, and within six yards of Giorgio
only a brown cloud with vague forms of necks and cruppers rolled by,
making the soil tremble on its passage.
Viola coughed, turning his face away from the dust, and shaking his head
slightly.
"There will be some horse-catching to be done before to-night," he
muttered.
In the square of sunlight falling through the door Signora Teresa,
kneeling before the chair, had bowed her head, heavy with a twisted
mass of ebony hair streaked with silver, into the palm of her hands.
The black lace shawl she used to drape about her face had dropped to
the ground by her side. The two girls had got up, hand-in-hand, in short
skirts, their loose hair falling in disorder. The younger had thrown
her arm across her eyes, as if afraid to face the light. Linda, with
her hand on the other's shoulder, stared fearlessly. Viola looked at his
children. The sun brought out the deep lines on his face, and, energetic
in expression, it had the immobility of a carving. It was impossible to
discover what he thought. Bushy grey eyebrows shaded his dark glance.
"Well! And do you not pray like your mother?"
Linda pouted, advancing her red lips, which were almost too red; but she
had admirable eyes, brown, with a sparkle of gold in the irises, full of
intelligence and meaning, and so clear that they seemed to throw a glow
upon her thin, colourless face. There were bronze glints in the sombre
clusters of her hair, and the eyelashes, long and coal black, made her
complexion appear still more pale.
"Mother is going to offer up a lot of candles in the church. She always
does when Nostromo has been away fighting. I shall have some to carry up
to the Chapel of the Madonna in the Cathedral."
She said all this quickly, with great assurance, in an animated,
penetrating voice. Then, giving her sister's shoulder a slight shake,
she added--
"And she will be made to carry one, too!"
"Why made?" inquired Giorgio, gravely. "Does she not want to?"
"She is timid," said Linda, with a little burst of laughter. "People
notice her fair hair as she goes along with us. They call out after
her, 'Look at the Rubia! Look at the Rubiacita!' They call out in the
streets. She is timid."
"And you? You are not timid--eh?" the father pronounced, slowly.
She tossed back all her dark hair.
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