The Cardinal's Snuff Box

"Yes," he acknowledged, while his heart sank within him, "the

rain has stopped."

And now the storm departed almost as rapidly as it had arrived.

In the north the sky was already clear, blue and hard-looking

--a wall of lapis-lazuli. The dark cloud-canopy was drifting to

the south. Suddenly the sun came out, flashing first from the

snows of Monte Sfiorito, then, in an instant, flooding the

entire prospect with a marvellous yellow light, ethereal amber;

whilst long streamers of tinted vapour--columns of pearl-dust,

one might have fancied--rose to meet it; and all wet surfaces,

leaves, lawns, tree-trunks, housetops, the bare crags of the

Gnisi, gleamed in a wash of gold.

Puffs of fresh air blew into the kitchen, filling it with the

keen sweet odour of wet earth. The priest and the Duchessa and

Emilia joined Peter at the open door.

"Oh, your poor, poor garden!" the Duchessa cried.

His garden had suffered a good deal, to be sure. The flowers

lay supine, their faces beaten into the mud; the greensward was

littered with fallen leaves and twigs--and even in one or two

places whole branches had been broken from the trees; on the

ground about each rose-bush a snow of pink rose-petals lay

scattered; in the paths there were hundreds of little pools,

shining in the sun like pools of fire.

"There's nothing a gardener can't set right," said Peter,

feeling no doubt that here was a trifling tax upon the delights

the storm had procured him.

"And oh, our poor, poor hats!" said the Duchessa, eyeing

ruefully those damaged pieces of finery. "I fear no gardener

can ever set them right."

"It sounds inhospitable," said Peter, "but I suppose I had

better go and build your bridge."

So he threw a ladder athwart the river, and laid the planks in

place, as he had seen Gigi do the day before.

"How ingenious--and, like all great things, how simple,"

laughed the Duchessa.

Peter waved his hand, as who should modestly deprecate

applause. But, I 'm ashamed to own, he didn't disclaim the

credit of the invention.

"It will require some nerve," she reflected, looking at the

narrow planks, the foaming green water. "However--"

And gathering in her skirts, she set bravely forward, and made

the transit without mishap. The priest and Emilia, gathering

in their skirts, made it after her.

She paused on the other side, and looked back, smiling.

"Since you have discovered so efficacious a means of cutting

short the distance between our places of abode," she said, "I

hope you will not fail to profit by it whenever you may have

occasion--on Thursday, for example."