seems little to affect children, and it hurt not at all the buoyant health and elastic strength of the young child they called Velia and the Musoncella. For one thing, she was for ever in the water when she was not scampering, fleet of foot as the hill goats, along the sands, or further out to the moorlands, where the fresher air was. Hardy men came from the mountains, and fell sick, and even died; strong soldiers came on guard from hot cities, and there grew wasted, and languid, and ill, but she throve there with a splendid vitality and vigour that were the pride of Joconda and her shame; her shame, because it recalled to her the face and form which she had seen for the last time by the red autumn light in the market place at Grosseto.
'She is his image,' she would say, scanning the pure, oval face, the arched, proud lips, the eyes like the eyes of the Braschi Antinous, the whole face that had the colour and the beauty of a flower with the firm lines of a classic bronze.
Of beauty she was no great judge, herself, but she knew that this child was beautiful with the terrible beauty of Saturnino.
