This she did, and standing by the door of the house, which is still there, prayed in the light of the full moon to Diana, that she might be delivered from the dire persecution to which she had been subjected, since even her own parents had willingly given her over to an awful death. Now her parents and the priests, and all who sought her death, were inthe palace watching lest she should escape. When Lo! in answer to her prayer there came a terrible tempest and overwhelming wind, a storm such as man had never seen before, which overthrew and swept away the palace with all who were in it; there was not one stone left upon another, nor one soul alive of all who were there. The gods had replied to the prayer. The young lady escaped happily with her lover, wedded him, and thehouse of the peasant where the lady stood is still called the House of the Wind. This is very accurately the story as I received it, but I freely admitthat I have very much condensed the language of the original text, whichconsists of twenty pages, and which, as regards needless padding, indicates a capacity on the part of the narrator to write an average modernfashionable novel, even a second rate French one, which is saying a greatdeal. It is true that there are in it no detailed descriptions of scenery,skies, trees, or clouds - and a great deal might be made of Volterra inthat way - but it is prolonged in a manner which shows a gift for it. However, the narrative itself is strangely original and vigorous, for itis such a relic of pure classic heathenism, and such a survival of faith inthe old mythology, as all the reflected second hand Hellenism of theAesthetes cannot equal. That a real worship of or belief in classic divinities should have survived to the present day in the very land of Papacy itself, is a much more curious fact than if a living mammoth had been discovered in some out of the way corner of the earth, becau...
