noon
I gave thanks to Heaven that I knew the country well . A quarter of a league or so from Pesaro we quitted the high-road and took to the by-paths with which I was well acquainted . Day came , grey and forbidding at first , but presently the rain ceased and the sun flashed out a thousand diamonds from the drenched hedge-rows . We plodded on ; and at length , towards noon , when we had gained the neighbourhood of the village of Cattolica , we halted at the hut of a peasant on a small campagna . I had divested myself of my monk 's habit , and cut away the cowl from Madonna 's . She had thereafter fashioned it by means that were mysterious to my dull man 's mind into a more feminine-looking garb . Thus we now presented ourselves to the old man who was the sole tenant of that lonely and squalid house .