The next few days were anxious ones for Italy. The straw-weavers of Tuscany were marching into Florence with the cry, ‘Pane o lavore!‘—‘Bread or work!‘—and in the north not bread, but revolution was openly the watchword. Timid tourists who had no desire to be mixed up in another ‘49 were across the frontiers into France and Switzerland; gentlemen from the Riviera, eager to enjoy the fun and not to take advantage of a universal , were in. The , jostled from its usual , had vigorously set itself to suppressing real and imaginary plots. newspapers were and the editors thrown into jail; telegrams and letters were , public meetings broken up, and men arrested in the streets for singing the ‘Hymn of Labour.’ The secret police worked night and day. Every café and theatre and crowd had its spies 210 disguised as loungers; and none dared speak the truth to his neighbour for fear his neighbour was in the pay of the .  
In Milan the rioters had been into a by their first taste of blood, and for three days the future of United Italy looked dark. and tramcars were overturned in the streets to make . Roofs and windows rained down tiles and stones, and the soldiers obeyed but when ordered to fire upon the mob. In their hearts many of them sympathized. The were out in force and working hard, and their motto was, ‘Spread the discontent!’ Priests and students from the universities were stirring up the peasants in the fields and urging them on to revolt. All dissatisfied classes were for the moment united in their desire to the existing government; what should take its place could be later. When Savoy was , then the others—the republicans, the priests, the socialists, the hungry mob in the streets—could fight it out among themselves. And as each in its heart believed itself to be the strongest, the fight, if it should come, was like to prove the end of Italy.
 
While the rest of the kingdom was filled with tumult, only faint echoes reached Vivalanti peacefully in the midst of its hills. Marcia, sitting with folded hands, uselessly at her forced inaction. She scarcely left the villa grounds; she was carrying out Sybert’s suggestion far more than he had meant it. She had not the moral courage to face the countryside; it seemed as if every peasant knew about the wheat and followed her with accusing eyes. Even the villa servants appeared to her sensibilities to go about their duties perfunctorily, as if they too shared the general distrust in their employers. The last week dragged slowly to its end. There were only four more days to be spent in the villa, and Marcia now was impatient to leave it. She wanted to get up into the mountains—anywhere out of Italy—where she need never hear the word ‘wheat’ again.
 
Saturday—the week-end that the Melvilles were to spend at the villa—dawned oppressively hot. It was a foretaste of what Rome could do in midsummer. Not a leaf was stirring; there was no suggestion of mist on the hills, and 211 the sun beat down glaringly upon a coloured landscape. The outer walls of the villa fairly sizzled in the light; but inside the atmosphere was respectably tempered. The green Venetian blinds had been dropped over the windows, the rugs rolled back, and the floors sprinkled with water. The afternoon sun might do its worst outside, but the large airy rooms were dark and cool—and quiet. Half an hour before, the walls had echoed Gerald’s despairing cry, ‘I won’t go to sleep! I won’t go to sleep!’ for Gerald was a true Copley and he took his hardly. But he had eventually dropped off in the midst of his revolt; and all was quiet now when Marcia issued from her room, garden hat in hand.
 
She paused with a light foot at Gerald’s door. The little fellow was spread out, face downward, on the bed, his arms and legs thrown to the four winds. Marcia smiled upon the little fists and damp yellow curls and tiptoed downstairs. On a pile of rugs in the lower hall Gervasio and Marcellus were curled up together, sleeping peacefully and happily. She smiled a on them also. Next to Gerald, Gervasio was the dearest little fellow in the world, and Marcellus the dearest and the homeliest dog.
 
She raised the blind and stepped on to the loggia. A blast of hot air struck her, and she hesitated . It was scarcely the weather for an afternoon stroll, but the ilex looked cool and , and she finally made a dash across the terrace and gratefully into its shady fastnesses. The sun-............