Lucrezia Gabbi came out onto the terrace of the Casa del Prete on Monte
Amato, shaded her eyes with her brown hands, and gazed down across the
ravine over the olive-trees and the vines to the mountain-side opposite,
along which, among rocks and Barbary figs, wound a tiny track trodden by
the few contadini whose stone cottages, some of them scarcely more than
huts, were scattered here and there upon the surrounding heights that
looked towards Etna and the sea. Lucrezia was dressed in her best. She
wore a dark-stuff gown covered in the front by a long blue-and-white
apron. Although really happiest in her mind when her feet were bare, she
had donned a pair of white stockings and low slippers, and over her
thick, dark hair was tied a handkerchief gay with a pattern of brilliant
yellow flowers on a white ground. This was a present from Gaspare bought
at the town of Cattaro at the foot of the mountains, and worn now for the
first time in honor of a great occasion.

To-day Lucrezia was in the service of distinguished forestieri, and she
was gazing now across the ravine straining her eyes to see a procession
winding up from the sea: donkeys laden with luggage, and her new padrone
and padrona pioneered by the radiant Gaspare towards their mountain home.
It was a good day for their arrival. Nobody could deny that. Even
Lucrezia, who was accustomed to fine weather, having lived all her life
in Sicily, was struck to a certain blinking admiration as she stepped out
on to the terrace, and murmured to herself and a cat which was basking
on the stone seat that faced the cottage between broken columns, round
which roses twined: "Che tempo fa oggi! Santa Madonna, che bel tempo!"