CHAPTER II.
THE ALLEGORY OF THE POMEGRANATE.
The early morning broke on Capri; with the rising of the sun the little fleet of boats all down the shore began to flutter into motion as the birds fluttered into song, the Angelus rang, the full daylight glittered over the white line of towns and villages that nestled far and wide in the bow of the bay; in the transparent air a delicate feathery column of grey smoke curled up from the cone of Vesuvius; the cliffs rose up in the sunlight, vine-covered, and standing like pillars out in the midst of the sea; while the mists were still hanging over that deep blue western depth, stretching out and on to the Mediterranean, farther and farther towards the columns of Hercules and the gates of the African and Asian worlds.
In her own chamber, a morning-room whose Windows, clustered round with trained myrtle and clematis, looked out down the shelving cliff on to
