Here and there, at a corner, was a wayside shrine with a faded picture of the Madonna, and a quaint brass lamp in front, and perhaps some flowers laid there by loving hands; dark-eyed smiling little children were playing about and giving each other rides in home-made hand-carts, and at one point the girls stood aside to let pass a donkey so loaded with tiny bamboo trees that it looked a mere moving mass of green.
At length the deep alley between the orange orchards gave way to a different scene.

They had been climbing steadily uphill, and now found themselves above the fruit zone and among the olive groves.

The high walls had disappeared, and the path ascended by a series of steps.

Gray olive trees were on either side, and on the bordering banks grew lovely wild flowers, starry purple anemones, jack-in-the-pulpit lilies, yellow oxalis, moon-daisies, and the beautiful genista which we treasure as a conservatory plant in England.

As it was country the girls were allowed to break rank, and keenly enjoyed gathering bouquets; they scrambled up the banks, vying with one another in getting the best specimens.