“I have thought, then, to acquire all the land possible about the Olives, planting the plain and peopling the hills. A mile or two distant there is a group of hills much like those on which Rome was built. Our people could come, not as one people, but as if they were strangers to each other. Those who would, might even come at first as laborers. We all know how to labor. For wealth, if we had workmen and engines, the mountains would be an immense storehouse. There are beautiful marbles, and there must be more gold. Then what refuges we could have, not hidden and crowded, but open!”
“Did you think to go out into the world in order to stir up the people to this movement?” Tacita asked, when she paused.
Iona had stopped with her eyes fixed southward, as if she saw through the mountain wall
