ASHES (CENERE): A Sardinian Story

It was the night of Midsummer Eve. Olì came forth from the white-walled Cantoniera[1] on the Mamojada road, and hurried away across the fields. She was fifteen, well-grown and beautiful, with very large, very bright, feline eyes of greenish grey, and a sensuous mouth of which the cleft lower lip suggested two ripe cherries. She wore a red petti-coat and stiff brocade bodice sustaining and defining her bosom; from the red cap tied under her prominent chin, is-sued two braids of glossy black hair twisted over her ears. This hair-dressing and the picturesque costume gave the girl an almost Oriental grace. Her fingers were heavily ringed, and she carried long streamers of scarlet ribbon, with which to "sign the flowers of St John," that is, to mark those bunches of mullein, thyme, and asphodel which she must pick to-morrow at dawn for the compounding of charms and drugs.