But We Tried To
Look As If We Had Merely Done The Villa Falconieri With Unexampled
Rapidity, And Pushed On To The Villa Mandragone, Where, Under The Roof
Of Interlacing Ilex Toughs, Our Horse Ought To Have Been Tempted On In A
Luxurious Unconsciousness Of Anything Like An Incline.
But he was
apparently an animal which would have felt the difference between two
rose-leaves and one in
A flowery path, and just when we were thinking
what a delightful time we were having, and beginning to feel a gentle
question as to who the pathetic little cripple halting toward us with a
color-box and a camp-stool might be, and whether she painted as well as
a kind heart could wish, our horse stopped with the suddenness which we
knew to be definite. The sensitive creature could not be deceived; he
must have reached rising ground, and we sided with him against our
driver, who would have pretended it was fancy.
It was now noon, and we drove back to the _piazza,_ agreeing upon a less
price in view of the imperfect service rendered, and deciding to collect
our thoughts for a new venture over such luncheon as the best hotel
could give us. It was not so good a hotel as the lunch it gave. It was
beyond the cleansing tide of modernity which has swept the Roman hotels,
and was dirty everywhere, but with a specially dirty, large, shabby
dining-room, cold and draughty, yet precious for the large, round
brazier near our table which kept one side of us warm in romantic
mediaeval fashion, and invited us to rise from time to time and thaw our
fingers over its blinking coals.
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