Italian Days and Ways

we found that most of the fine trees which once adorned the ascent had been ruthlessly destroyed. They tell us that a public-spirited and beauty-loving Englishman offered to pay a fair price for some of the goodliest trees if they might only be left standing in their places; but the offer was refused, and the vandalism continues. How you will mourn these noble trees when you come here!—feeling, as you do, that the wanton destruction of trees is a crime near to that of homicide in the category of sins. Yet, in the midst of this wholesale destruction, a school has been established for the training of foresters. It is to be hoped that this Foresteria, which occupies the old monastery buildings, may disseminate so much light that in the future trees may be preserved as well as planted. We were told that thousands of trees had been planted within a short time.

With the suppression of the monastery many of the characteristic features of Vallombrosa have disappeared, and so we may not see the place as the Brownings saw it when they came here in the summer of 1847. Do you remember how they were ingloriously expelled from the monastery at the end of five days, as Mrs. Browning says, "by a little holy abbot with a red face, who was given to sanctity and had set his face against women"? We could well understand what it would have been to those lovers of nature to spend two months, as they had planned, in the midst of the majestic beauty of this mountain paradise. We long inexpressibly to stay a week here and then take a couple of days for La Verna, where again one comes upon footprints of St. Francis and his brothers, but we all learned from our school copybooks that "time and tide wait for no man," and we have promised to be in Florence to-morrow night to meet Bertha and Mrs. Robins, who are to join us in a trip to the Certosa on the following day. Zelphine and I make solemn vows, as we have done in many other entrancing spots, that we will return to Vallombrosa some day and stay as long as we wish. These resolves comfort us, and yet—and yet—do we ever have "the time and the place and the loved one all together," especially the time? To-morrow we shall be up betimes to enjoy the early morning view from Il Paradisino, with the clouds rolling away beneath our feet to show us once again the dome of our beloved Santa Maria del Fiore above the shoulder of a hill, a sight which it is worth while climbing mountains to see, and if the day is fine, and here days usually are fine, we may even catch a glimpse of the glistening sea beyond Florence and its hills.

Pension C., Florence, May 12th.

We found Ludovico's cards on our return from Vallombrosa. He had come quite unexpectedly on military business, so he says, for of course he returned later in the evening and we had a long talk with him. He proposes to act as our guide here, as in the old Roman days, and is planning a number of delightful excursions for us. As the sun is very hot now we are glad to spend our mornings in the galleries and churches, which are delightfully cool.

This morning, to our surprise, and also, I think, to Ludovico's, the Marquis de B. appeared. He also has come upon military business, being in the army, like most young Italians of good family. Indeed, as Ludovico ingenuously remarked, the other day, "There is nothing else for us to do, unless we go into the Church or marry an American heiress; and neither of these," with perfect sang-froid and not a trace of embarrassment, "is to my taste."

Although there is nothing in the least alarming in the appearance of these sons of Mars, I must confess that their arrival has filled me with misgivings. Ludovico still bears himself with the air of frank camaraderie that charmed us when we first met him. The Marquis is formality itself, his manners simply perfection as such; what lies beyond and beneath an exterior so impressive I have never been clever enough to discover. Both of these young men address much of their conversation to Zelphine and me, after the polite Continental fashion, yet neither one misses a glance or a movement of Angela's, and they both furtively watch each other. It is interesting and exciting, and would be amusing were I not the chaperon and temporary guardian of this apparently unconscious charmer.

It is not easy for such good Americans as we are to adapt our tongues to foreign titles, and for some inexplicable reason "marquis" is much more difficult for us "to handle," as Angela says, than "count," and the Italian "marchese" is quite impossible. Ludovico has relieved our embarrassment by telling us that it is quite immaterial whether we call his friend "marquis" or "count," as they have both titles in his family, and several others beside.

This morning we spent in the Church of San Lorenzo, where the first Cosimo de' Medici is buried. In one of the chapels are some statuettes by Donatello and in the other the world-famous Medici tombs, the thoughtful Lorenzo, the most expressive of all marbles, and beneath him, the Dawn and Twilight, the former the finest of the four statues, the effort of waking from sleep being plainly revealed in every line. The narrow niches in which these masterpieces are placed are so out of all proportion to their size and grandeur that, as Ludovico pointed out to us, they seem to be slipping off the pitiable pedestals which support them. Do you remember what Ruskin said of these impressive figures? To him they spoke "not of morning nor evening, but of the departure and the resurrection, the twilight and the dawn of the souls of men." Zelphine and I think that those few lines give the motif of the statues better than any of the elaborate descriptions that have been written about them.

May 13th.

Ludovico and Count B. accompanied us to-day on our morning stroll through the galleries. Ludovico has the excellent taste in art that seems born in these Latins, and draws our attention to the best pictures in each gallery without recourse to guide or catalogue. Count B. doubtless has good taste also, but it is not in the line of antiques at present, as he seldom withdraws his eyes from Angela's face, except when she expresses admiration or asks him some question, when he reveals his knowledge of Florentine history and tradition by long, erudite, and somewhat tiresome explanations. This morning when I expressed my preference for the Raphael Madonnas over and above all others, the Count delivered himself quite sententiously of Vasari's opinion of Andrea del Sarto's work, especially of the Madonna del Sacco, which we saw again yesterday at the Annunziata, that "for drawing, grace, and beauty of color, for liveliness and relief, no artist had ever done the like," after which he repeated Vasari's story of Michael Angelo writing to Raphael that there was "a certain sorry little scrub of a painter going about the streets of Florence who would bring the sweat to his [Raphael's] brow, if he had his chance." You know the tale; Browning refers to it in his "Andrea del Sarto." The Count told this story with a glint of humor in his handsome eyes that I have never seen there before. Zelphine says that I am not quite just to Count B. I am willing to admit that he is taller and handsomer than Ludovico and has more the air of a grand seigneur; but then I like Ludovico far better, and no matter what the Count says or whom he quotes to support his arguments in favor of the Del Sarto Madonnas, for tenderness and motherliness we must always come back to the Raphaels. Our two companions found us this morning lingering before the lovely Madonna with the Cardinal-bird, which in its sweetness and domesticity is, I think, only equalled by the Belle Jardinière of the Louvre. Zelphine agrees with the Count in his estimate of Del Sarto, but Angela and Ludovico are quite in sympathy with me in their loyalty to Raphael. When the work of both these great masters is so supremely beautiful, it seems absurd to be discussing their comparative merits so hotly. Which side would you take, I wonder?

We crossed the Arno by the picture-gallery of the Ponte Vecchio, a passageway lined with portraits of dead-and-gone kings and queens, dukes and princesses, many of these latter proud Spanish ladies with whom the crafty lords of Tuscany allied themselves. How luxurious and beauty-loving were those Medici princes! Not content with a noble gallery of paintings on each side of the river, Cosimo spanned the distance between them with a third, having already turned the Florentine butchers out of the lower part of the Ponte Vecchio and given their stalls to goldsmiths, whose successors still display their wares here. Half-way across we stopped before the large windows cut in the sides of the bridge, which frame in a fine view of the heights of San Miniato upon one side and on the other of the windings of the Arno and the Cascine with its trees and shrubbery. From the bridge, by many stairs, we reached the vast salons of the Pitti Palace, which contain priceless treasures of art with which photographs and engravings have made us all familiar. We passed from one glorious Raphael to another, pausing before a superb Del Sarto or Murillo in a state of rapturous delight, until, as we stood before Fra Bartolommeo's Marriage of St. Catherine of Siena, beautiful in composition, drawing, and relief, a pleasant English voice at our side said, "Rather nice, is it not?"

We turned to see a fresh-faced girl, who addressed this remark to the typical John Bull en voyage. We waited, like her, for the reply which came slowly, in a gruff voice.

"Yes, rather. A pastel?"—and in just such a tone as one might have spoken of a chromo. An Englishwoman standing near, from the London cockney district but evidently with an appreciation of art, looked at the girl compassionately, and ejaculated, "Poor lidy!" Whether the pitying tone was in consequence of the girl's art-limitations or because the pretty creature was the bride of the dull, red-faced giant, with whom she walked away, hand in hand, we shall never know, for just at this moment we heard a clock striking one. How the morning had sped away!

"It will be quite impossible to get back to the pension in time for luncheon," said Angela. Upon which Count B., with elaborate courtesy, begged us to honor him by breakfasting with him in a little garden-café near the entrance to the Boboli Gardens. The luncheon had all been ordered in advance, this being, as we afterwards discovered, a cleverly arranged plan of the Count's and Ludovico's, and there was nothing to do but accept the invitation as graciously as it was given.

The little garden had been converted into a bower of roses, and the table was a dream of beauty, covered with exquisite flowers, sparkling glass and silver, and, not less important to hungry sight-seers, the menu was delicious. It was all like a fairy feast to which we had been bidden by Prince Charming himself. Zelphine said she would not be surprised to see a white cat or a genie appear at any moment.

"Priest and book are what we are in more danger of than white cat or genie," I whispered, as I bent over the table to admire some rare lilies that adorned its centre.

I feel as if a spell of enchantment were being spread around Angela's path, and yet she talks and laughs and is as free as air, never by word or look revealing which of her suitors she prefers, or whether she has a penchant for either. The modern girl is a study, as you well know, and Angela is not the least interesting one that I have met.

After luncheon the Count proposed that we should stroll over to the Boboli Gardens. Here in one of the marvellous pergolas, where, by the careful clipping and training of the ilexes, a refreshing twilight shade is to be found at high noon, we sought refuge from the scorching heat of the sun. Again it appeared that our host's thoughtful care had preceded us, as camp-chairs awaited us in this green bower, and here coffee and ices were served to us as if by magic, which we enjoyed in the coolness of our pergola, from which we looked forth upon the terraces beneath us, where the horse-chestnuts are covered with pink feathery bloom, and upon the old amphitheatre, the fountain, and the "cyclopean massiveness" of the walls of the great Palazzo Pitti.

The amphitheatre was filled with children at play and nurses with babies, as it always is on the free days at the Boboli.

"Why are the boys catching so many crickets and putting them in cages?" asked Angela of Ludovico.

For several days we have noticed the children in the Cascine busily engaged in catching crickets, on the grass and among the bushes. Some of the boys go off with dozens of them, sometimes in large cages, but more frequently in a number of pretty little cages of wire or wood, all strung on a stick, a single cricket in each one.

"Yes," added Zelphine, "what is the meaning of all this catching of crickets?"

"For Grilli Day, of course," said Ludovico, laughing heartily at the idea of our not knowing anything so well known. "On the feast of the Ascension, to-morrow, you will see what the boys do with the grilli, and you will be buying grilli like the rest."

"And why should I buy crickets," asked Angela, "especially as I don't like them at all?"

"For luck, of course, signorina; everybody buys the grilli for luck." And then Ludovico sang, in his light, gay Italian fashion but in a voice in which a minor chord seemed to dominate the gay notes:

To our surprise, the Count joined in Ludovico's song, in a rich bass voice that resounded through the little pergola and brought a crowd of urchins to our retreat with their hands full of grilli in cages. The Count laughed good-humoredly, and presented each one of us with a caged grillo, saying, "For luck, ladies; if the grilli live, the luck will be good; if not," with a shrug, "it may be good all the same."

He then insisted that Angela should buy him a grillo in a cage, which she did laughingly, but which he received quite seriously, looking as if he intended to guard it with his life.

Zelphine, her thirst for knowledge still unsatisfied, asked for information as to the origin of this curious custom.

"It is a custom of great antiquity," replied Ludovico, which, as we have learned by experience, is his method of silencing troublesome American questions that he is unable to answer. The Count, who appeared to be in an especially genial mood, then told us many stories and legends about the grilli, in which fairies and princesses figured quite prominently and goodness was rewarded and wickedness punished after the charmingly judicial fashion of fairyland. One of the prettiest of these tales we found afterwards in Mr. Leland's "Legends of Florence," in the form of a poem called "The King of the Crickets."

About four o'clock a delightful breeze sprang up, and Ludovico proposed that we drive to San Miniato. The suggestion was made apparently on the spur of the moment, and yet when we descended from our airy height to the street below, carriages were awaiting us, not ordinary cabs but fairy coaches fit for princesses.

The drive through the Porta Romana and along the hillside road of Le Colle was enchanting. The church which Michael Angelo called "La Bella Villanella" is beautiful in its simplicity. After we had admired some of the frescoes on the walls—not all of them—and the exquisitely wrought marble screen and pulpit, and explored the crypt with its twenty-eight columns, we were glad to go out upon the marble steps and enjoy from thence the view of Florence in the distance, and the intervening hills covered with olive-groves and vineyards. Count B., who had lingered with Angela in the lovely cypress avenue that leads to the church, joined us on the terrace and took us back into the nave to show us the chapel tomb of young Cardinal Jacopo of the royal house of Portugal, with its beautiful low reliefs by Luca della Robbia. Descanting eloquently upon the virtues and charity of the Portuguese cardinal, who died at an early age, Count B. led us down the steps of the church and out upon the Piazza Michelangelo, where the David stands, as best becomes him, en plein air. You know that the original marble, of which this is an admirable copy in bronze, was sculptured for the Piazza della Signoria. It is now carefully guarded from the elements in the Belle Arti. This noble figure is the embodiment of glorious, inextinguishable youth and strength, and is to me the most inspiring of Michael Angelo's statues.

Zelphine and I walked around the piazza to view the statue from all sides, while Count B. and Ludovico took turns in trying to keep the sun off Angela, whose complexion seems to require unusual care in these days!

"Is there any other American girl who could resist all this devotion and a title to crown it?" asked Zelphine.

"You seem to have decided this important question for Angela," said I. "What makes you think that she will turn a deaf ear to Prince Charming's suit?"

"I cannot say just why. Angela is charmingly polite and appreciative, and yet——"

At this moment, having suddenly recalled the fact that we existed, Ludovico came over to point out to us the beauty of the Duomo from this hill-top, Giotto's pink tower glowing to rose in the warm sunset light.

Ludovico looks rather sad and distrait, to my thinking; his views may differ from Zelphine's, whose "and yet—" may be variously construed by the three onlookers who anxiously await developments.

Ascension Day, otherwise Grilli Day.

Zelphine and Angela, with the two cavaliers of the party, started off early this morning in a great stage-coach to breakfast al fresco in some pretty garden after the Florentine fashion. The idea of a festival here seems to be to breakfast or to dine anywhere in space except at home; consequently all Florence seems to be breakfasting abroad. The little dairies in and about the Cascine are surrounded by so many tables filled with family parties and gaily dressed folk that they look like huge bouquets of many-colored flowers. It is delightful to see people take their pleasure after so natural and simple a fashion as they do in these Latin countries. To be out of doors, with ever so simple a menu before them, seems to make a festa for these light-hearted people.

Although I admire the Florentine custom, I was glad to stay at home to-day to write letters and to sit in the Cascine, as I am doing this minute, where the great trees spread "their webs of full greenery" above me and the children are playing all around on the grass.

I was rejoicing in the beauty and restfulness of this lovely spot, having up to this time escaped the vendors of grilli, when several boys approached me with their crickets in especially pretty cages. "Quanto?" I asked, pointing to a dainty wire cage. "Una lira," was the reply. This was too much by half, and having managed to reduce the price to the proper sum, I handed the boy a lira, and waited for the change with the cage in my hand. The small salesman seemed to have considerable difficulty in finding the desired change, turned out his pockets, questioned his companions, and finally rubbed his eyes hard and began to weep piteously. At this moment a policeman appeared, and asked the boy what troubled him, when he, accomplished actor that he was, pointed to the cage in my hand, and explained that I had taken his wares and not paid him the half lira demanded. To prove this he pointed to his empty pockets. What he had done with my lira, whether he had swallowed it or deposited it with a confederate, I know not. The policeman, looking very stern, asked me for an explanation, which I gave in the best Italian that I could muster, feeling quite sure that had Zelphine been there, her ready tongue and eloquent gestures would have convinced that distrustful policeman of my innocence. An Englishwoman who had witnessed the transaction approached, and gave in her testimony in much better Italian than mine, all to no purpose.

By this time quite a crowd had gathered around us, all deeply interested. The boy, encouraged by a sympathetic audience, wept copiously and repeated his tale of woe; the big policeman looked at me threateningly. My English ally repeated her explanation, and seeing that it made no impression, and the lira not being in the boy's hands, she whispered to me, "You had better pay him again for the cage; the policeman is evidently on the boy's side, and between them they may make a disagreeable scene for you." "Never," I replied, resolutely, "but he shall have his cage again," handing it to the little gamin, saying, "I have paid for it twice already, but you may have it."

The scene was already sufficiently disagreeable, and, supported by my English friend, I made my way to another part of the Cascine, with visions of a Florentine court and jail floating through my mind.

"That is one of the stock tricks of these gamins," she explained. "It would have been all right if you had given him the half lira at once, but with the whole lira in his hand there came the temptation to keep it all. These people see so little money, a lira is quite a fortune to them."

The grilli had certainly brought me no luck, and I now carefully avoid looking at a cage, although I do want one of the pretty little wire ones to take home with me. Perhaps Ludovico will get me one. When he joined me later and heard of my experience, he was so indignant that if he could have laid hands on that small actor it is doubtful whether his histrionic powers would have been allowed to develop to maturity. The humor of the situation did not appeal to him, as it did to Angela and Zelphine.

May 16th.

As Ludovico and Count B. do not speak of leaving Florence soon, we conclude that the military affairs that keep them here must be of a rather protracted nature. They do not, however, complain of the delay, nor do we. To be escorted by two devoted cavaliers through palaces and villas and gardens of delight is an experience that one might wish to prolong indefinitely. Halcyon days are these, truly, and if storms and rain come, it is only at night, as we awake each morning to find the sun shining upon the rose-garden beneath our windows and a new day of pleasure beckoning us on.

We have had some charming afternoons in the villas near Florence. Yesterday we went to Sesto in a tram that starts from the Piazza del Duomo, and from Sesto a short walk brought us to Castello. This royal villa, which once belonged to the Medici, is full of family portraits, and some of its beautiful rooms look really home-like—"as if one could live in them," Angela said, which remark seemed greatly to amuse Count B., who has, I fancy, spent all his days in such cold, formal apartments as are to be found in most of these palaces. It was in the gardens, however, that we were tempted to linger. Those of Castello are elaborately laid out and adorned with fountains and statues, and now with the orange and lemon trees in blossom are filled with delicious fragrance. We stopped so long on the terrace under the great ilexes and beeches that the twilight had begun to fall and the nightingales to sing before we started homeward. Usignuoli Ludovico calls these birds of the night. He and the Count were so pleased with Zelphine's delight over Castello and its nightingales that they insisted upon taking us this afternoon to Petraja, an even more elaborate villa on the heights above Castello. In this villa, which is on the southern slope of the Apennines, Scipione Ammirato wrote his celebrated history of Florence. In the last century Petraja was elaborately fitted up by Victor Emmanuel II. for Madame Mirafiore, for which reason, probably, it has not been a favorite residence of the royal family of Italy, and its lovely gardens and terraces are enjoyed only by tourists and occasional visitors.

XVI
FIESOLE

Fiesole, Tuesday, May 17th.

We women, in the absence of our cavaliers, who will be away for two days upon some special military service, have planned to spend a day in fairyland and an evening in Bohemia. Is not that a sufficiently sensational beginning to please one of our own newspapers at home? This morning, Bertha and Mrs. Robins having joined us, we all set forth in a tram from the Piazza della Signoria for Fiesole. Half-way up the hillside we stopped at the Domenico, where Fra Angelico lived as a monk, gathering here, as one of his brothers relates, "in abundance the flowers of art which he seemed to have plucked from Paradise." One of the richest of these treasures, the Coronation of the Virgin, has been carried away to the Louvre, but there is still in the choir of the Domenico a lovely memorial of him—a Virgin Enthroned between St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. Behind the group are five guardian angels with tributes of flowers in their hands. This and a Baptism of Christ, by Lorenzo di Credi, are the treasures of the Domenico. We stopped at La Badia and enjoyed the fine view from its terrace, and walked slowly past the Villa Landore, now shut in by tall cypresses, where Walter Savage Landor once lived. Here in these beautiful grounds described by Boccaccio in his "Valley of Ladies," surrounded by his little children and his many pets, Porigi the house-dog, the cat Cincirillo, whose original sin showed itself in a decided taste for birds, the tame martin, and the leveret, Landor spent the most peaceful years of a life that was far from happy. "Aerial Fiesole" he might well name this lovely hillside garden, in which he promised Mr. Francis Hare and his bride "grapes, figs, and nightingale concerts galore." At the Medici Villa, a favorite residence of Lorenzo the Magnificent, we admired once again the unerring taste of old Cosimo, who chose for a summer residence this favorite spot which overhangs Florence. Brunelleschi's superb dome, Giotto's belfry, Santa Maria Novella, beautiful as a bride, Santa Croce, San Marco, and San Spirito, all stood out in fairy-like beauty this lovely May morning.

After stopping at the cathedral on the Piazza of Fiesole, and at Santa Maria Primerana to look at a tabernacle by one of the Della Robbias and a painting by Andrea da Fiesole, Angela insisted that we had done our whole duty as sight-seers and might now begin to enjoy ourselves in earnest. To this Bertha heartily agreed, suggesting that as we had come to Fiesole for a day of rest and recreation in the open, we should lunch on the terrace of the little hotel, and spend the afternoon in the ancient theatre.

We have learned in Florence, even better than in vast Rome, whose historic past appealed to us so insistently on all sides, that it is not in the galleries and churches, interesting as they are, that we find the most pleasure, but in the market-places and on the streets, with their chatter and life, or in sitting, as we sat to-day, on the hotel terrace, with the fertile plain spread before us and the garden at our feet, in which the peasants were singing at their tasks. Beyond are villa-dotted hills, and still beyond, the chain of distant mountains veiled in purple light, which melts into the azure sky with an indescribable charm of its own.

Florence is on the other side of Fiesole, and from the terrace we had a rural view, with nothing but hill, valley, and mountain, excepting the villas, of course, among these Vincigliata, which Katharine says we must see if we would know what a castle of the middle ages is like. Vincigliata is built on the ruins of a castle of the Bisdomini, and contains great collections of ancient furniture and armor. We shall drive out to Vincigliata in a coach and four some day, as this is a favorite afternoon excursion from the Pension C.

Having finished our luncheon, which was quite Italian and really delicious, we strolled down to the old amphitheatre, where we sit on the stone seats and look away toward Florence while Mrs. Robins reads to us Browning's "Old Pictures in Florence" and "Andrea del Sarto," both poems so full of the atmosphere of the beautiful city.

The other day when we were at the Annunziata, at the corner of the Via della Mandorla, we saw the little house where Andrea and his fair and false Lucrezia sat in the evenings and looked over toward "yonder sober, pleasant Fiesole." We seem to see the old-world pair sitting there

Andrea with the face of an artist and dreamer, a trifle weak withal, and she with the

How beautiful this Lucrezia was we know from many a picture of Andrea's. Zelphine and I think that the Madonna del Sacco must have been likest to her. The superb beauty of flesh and blood, line and color, so satisfies us that we do not miss the soul that seems to have been wanting in the original; or did Andrea, artist-like, give to the pictured Lucrezia graces with which his imagination endowed her? We hope so, for if he saw her as Browning represents her in his poem, he must have been indeed the most unhappy of men.

While I write, Angela and Zelphine try to get snap-shots of us as we sit under the trees, and Katharine warns us that we shall soon have to turn our faces homeward, if we wish to be in time for the dinner in Bohemia to which she invites us.

Pension C., Tuesday Evening.

Our evening in Bohemia was, in its way, quite as much of a success as the day in fairyland. Katharine conducted us through winding streets, whose twistings and turnings we shall never be able to follow without Ariadne's thread, to a café in a cellar, where artists most do congregate. A friend of Katharine's, an exceedingly pretty and vivacious Englishwoman, joined us at table, and amused us very much by telling us that she had sometimes been taken for an American and was said to talk like an American, which evidently pleased her very much. Did I think so? I laughed, and said that she would have to talk many different ways in order to verify the description, as that was a part of our infinite variety. She said that she had recently met a unique American man.

"Why unique?" asked Bertha.

"In being selfish," was the prompt reply. "All the American men I had met before were unselfish, chivalrous, ready to do anything and everything for the comfort and pleasure of the women of their party; but this man, this unique specimen, seemed to forget that we existed."

Now was not that a pleasant hearing, and are you not proud of the reputation of your compatriots?

While we were discussing national traits the cook, in white cap and apron, was broiling our beefsteak and cooking vegetables over his little charcoal fire; these he served to us smoking hot and delicious. The wine was brought on the table in a huge bottle, which was weighed before and afterwards, like the unfortunates who are fattened on cereals and predigested foods, with this difference, that the bottle lost in weight instead of gaining, and we paid for the shortage. We had an omelette soufflée of the lightest for our dessert, after which a man in a white paper cap handed around a tray of sweets, all manner of delicious confections on sticks, for each of which we paid one soldo. It was all delightfully novel and Bohemian, and as we strolled home by the Arno, with the sound of its rushing water in our ears, its shining breast gleaming like silver in the moonlight, we sang old songs, like college-girls, and were so happy that one drop more would have caused our cup of content to overflow in tears—and if tears had been shed it would have been because some of those we care for were not here to share with us the pleasure of this day of days and this night of perfect beauty.

May 18th.

If we think of Dante and Savonarola as we cross the Piazza of the Signoria and walk through the narrow winding streets that lead from it, every old building and quaint corner recalls some line or verse of the Brownings, husband or wife. In the Via Belle Donne we naturally thought of them, as it was in this little street, which opens into the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, that the poet lovers first made their home, and in the Cascine, where we saw some of the lovely Florentine beauties, as Mrs. Browning described them, "lean and melt to music as the band plays," and above all at the Belvedere, that crowns the many terraces of the Boboli Gardens, from which height Florence, with her domes and towers and palaces, framed in by hills of blue velvet, answers to the poet's own picture of the beautiful city, and

To-day has been devoted to Browning pilgrimages. An American woman at our table rashly asserted that Mr. Browning had made a mistake in his "Statue and the Bust" by placing the lady with the "pale brow spirit-pure" at the window of the Riccardi Palace, as it would be quite impossible for the great Duke Ferdinand to look up from the Piazza of the Annunziata at the casement of the Palazzo Riccardi, now the Prefettura, which is way over on the Piazza San Lorenzo. This statement may seem to you a trifle confusing; but it was sufficiently clear to rouse Zelphine's ire, and after breakfast we set forth determined to clear up the seeming inconsistency. In the Piazza of the Annunziata Duke Ferdinand still "rides by with the royal air," as John of Bologna has represented him, "in subtle mould of brazen shape," his face turned directly toward the one window of the palace, from which a terra-cotta bust should look forth.

"This all answers perfectly to the description," said Angela, "except that there is no bust of the lady at the casement; it seems as if Mr. Browning had made a mistake this time. I really don't care very much, but I can't stand having that flippant, red-haired woman get the better of you, Z."

"She shall not," said Zelphine, with determination in every line of her lithe figure. "Vieusseux to the rescue!"

Zelphine set forth to gain what information might be had from the library shelves, while Angela and I crossed over to the Piazza San Lorenzo, and spent a delightful hour in studying the wonderful frescoes that adorn the chapel of the debatable Palazzo Riccardi.

Here is that most remarkable procession of the Magi winding along a rocky hillside, the perspective of the most original character: Cosimo, Pater Patriæ, well in the foreground, the Three Kings represented by the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Emperor of the East, and, youngest of the three, Lorenzo the Magnificent, on a white charger. You know the painting well, but no photograph can give you any conception of the richness of color and exquisite details of this impossible, fairy-like landscape, in which distant mountains, hovering angels, birds, beasts, and flowers unknown to this lower world, add to the variety and charm of Gozzoli's great work. It is of this fresco that Mr. Ruskin wrote, "Bright birds hover here and there in the serene sky, and groups of angels, hand joined with hand and wing with wing, glide and float through the glades of the unentangled forest."

Angela and I were so absorbed in the beauty of the painting that we had quite forgotten about Zelphine's quest, when a voice at our side exclaimed, triumphantly:

"I have solved the riddle. The palace on the Square of the Annunziata was a Riccardi palace at the time of Mr. Browning's poem, and at the window toward which Duke Ferdinand's eyes are turned there was a bust of a lady as late as 1887. The present Palazzo Riccardi, now the Prefettura, was once a Medici palace; it was sold many years later to the Riccardi family. Here Duke Ferdinand made his feast on the night of the wedding, the one and only time that the lovers met:

"Cannot you see it all?" continued Zelphine, breathlessly, quite regardless of the interest that her animated face and eager words were exciting in the little group around us,

"This crime was the murder of Duke Alessandro by his distant cousin Lorenzino, and this, you see, fixes the fact beyond dispute that the feast was given by the Duke in this great Riccardi palace on the Square of San Lorenzo. Isn't it all wonderful and thrilling, and is there any place in the world so filled to the very brim with interest and romance as Florence?"

"No place except Rome," said Angela, true to her first love.

"Yes, but the history seems less remote here; everything seems nearer and closer, more intimate—you understand what I mean, Margaret."

When Zelphine appeared at the lunch table, flushed with the joy of victory and quite ready to annihilate her scoffing adversary, whom Angela disrespectfully designated as "Red-top," she found, to her dismay, that the lady had left for Venice before noon. This is surely one of the incompletenesses of life. To think of that misguided woman proceeding on her way to scatter misinformation broadcast, when Zelphine could have set her right in five minutes!

When Bertha heard of Zelphine's disappointment, she was most sympathetic, and proposed, as a congenial and solacing occupation, that we should return that afternoon to the Square of San Lorenzo and try to find the old stall where Mr. Browning, on a memorable June day, bought for a lira the little volume that contained the whole story of "The Ring and the Book."

The piazza, a market for old clothes, old furniture, and all manner of cooking-utensils, still answers to Mr. Browning's description, and here, close to the statue, which is of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, father of the first Cosimo, is just such a table full of nondescript rubbish as the one upon which the poet found the parchment-covered book which furnished him with his plot. Then at Bertha's suggestion, to humor our fancies as to the associations of the time and place, we followed in the poet's footsteps, as he described himself, walking and reading,

To my surprise, when we reached the doorway of the Casa Guidi, Bertha also entered "where the black begins," and began to ascend "the staircase cold."

"Where are you going?" we called after her, standing within the doorway.

"Follow me," said Bertha. "I have some friends who live in an apartment in the Casa Guidi, and we are all invited to afternoon tea here."

"Why didn't you tell us before?" asked Angela, "so that we might have made ourselves a little smart?"

"Because I wanted to give you all a surprise. My friend asked me to bring you any afternoon, so I sent a messenger to tell her that we were coming, to make sure of her being at home, as she often spends the afternoon up in the Boboli Gardens with her baby."

Alas! Bertha's artist friends do not live in the Browning apartment, as that, by some irony of fate, is in the possession of an Austrian family; but as Zelphine said, with a rapturous look in her eyes, it was worth much to pass over the stairs that had known the footsteps of the two poets. Mr. and Mrs. Cobbe's apartment is on what we should call the fourth floor, which here they more encouragingly designate the third. Charming airy rooms, at the top of many stairs, we found the home of the two American artists, where a warm welcome awaited us. Later, refreshments were served to us in the large room that corresponds to Mrs. Browning's drawing-room on the floor below; but whether we ate and drank ordinary cakes and tea, or were regaled with nectar and ambrosia, Zelphine and I cannot tell you. It was all so delightfully homelike and yet so filled with associations that this afternoon in the Casa Guidi will always be one of our most cherished memories, and we parted with our compatriots feeling that the old palace was an appropriate setting for artist as well as for poet lovers.

Pension C., Florence, May 20th.

What will you say when I tell you that since writing my last letter to you I have received a proposal of marriage? M. le Marquis de B. di T., of ancient Roman lineage and irreproachable family connections, laid his heart, his hand, and his fortune at my feet—for Angela. Are you amused at my rôle? I assure you that it was not in the smallest degree amusing at the time, and the fact that the prétendant acted in a highly honorable manner, and did not consult Angela definitively before speaking to her stern guardian, added to the difficulties of my position. I explained, at some length, that affairs of the heart are arranged by the young people themselves in America, always, of course, with the consent of their parents and guardians—for this last unqualified statement I trust that I may be forgiven—to which I added that if Miss Haldane returned the Count's affection, we would both write to her father. After delivering myself of a series of appropriate phrases I sent for Angela, and awaited the result of the interview between the two young persons with some anxiety, as you may believe. You will be laughing at me and reflecting upon the inconsistency of women when I tell you that I felt quite disturbed over Angela's absolute and unequivocal dismissal of the Count's suit. He has been growing in favor with me ever since that fairy-like afternoon at the Boboli Gardens, and when he came to take a solemn and ceremonious farewell of me, assuring me that he had spent the happiest hours of his life in our society, and was so exquisitely courteous, so evidently anxious to save me from embarrassment, I found myself liking him almost as much as Ludovico. We shall miss him sadly, and, to add to our sorrows, Ludovico, loyal friend that he is, has gone with the Count.

"Did you send him away, too, heartless one?" I asked Angela.

She looked at me reproachfully, her lovely blue eyes full of tears, and replied, with gentle dignity, "How can you be so unkind, Margaret? You know very well that I did not."

It appears that this is all that Zelphine and I are to hear on this most exciting subject, although we are naturally devoured with curiosity to know more. If only Count B. had not declared himself just at this time, when we were all so happy together in this beautiful Florence! I am quite sure that the affair was brought to a crisis by Angela's charming appearance last Sunday in a ravishing costume of pale blue muslin, her golden crescent of hair adorned with one of the Tuscan hats that we buy for next to nothing at the Mercato Vecchio. This particular hat was of silvery blue turned up with white roses, and became her almost as well as a coronet—so I am sure the Count thought. To-day there is nothing gay in the heavens above or on the earth beneath, as the skies, suiting themselves to our mood, are heavy and gray, and the Arno is dull green instead of lovely blue.