Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber by adding text to the original cover and is placed in the public domain.
THE
WHEAT PRINCESS
“The time is coming, let us hope,when the whole English-speaking worldwill recognise in O. Henry one of thegreatest masters of modern fiction.”
PROLOGUE
If you leave the city by the Porta Maggiore and take theVia Prænestina, which leads east into the Sabine hills, atsome thirty-six kilometers’ distance from Rome you willpass on your left a grey-walled village climbing up thehillside. This is Palestrina, the old Roman Præneste; anda short distance beyond—also on the left—you will findbranching off from the straight Roman highway a steepmountain road, which, if you stick to it long enough, willtake you, after many windings, to Castel Madama and Tivo