red to console each other; in this manner, true philosophy
taught us to reason.

It was the delight of Adrian and myself to wait on Clara, naming her the
little queen of the world, ourselves her humblest servitors. When we
arrived at a town, our first care was to select for her its most choice
abode; to make sure that no harrowing relic remained of its former
inhabitants; to seek food for her, and minister to her wants with assiduous
tenderness. Clara entered into our scheme with childish gaiety. Her chief
business was to attend on Evelyn; but it was her sport to array herself in
splendid robes, adorn herself with sunny gems, and ape a princely state.
Her religion, deep and pure, did not teach her to refuse to blunt thus the
keen sting of regret; her youthful vivacity made her enter, heart and soul,
into these strange masquerades.

We had resolved to pass the ensuing winter at Milan, which, as being a
large and luxurious city, would afford us choice of homes. We had descended
the Alps, and left far behind their vast forests and mighty crags. We
entered smiling Italy. Mingled grass and corn grew in her plains, the
unpruned vines threw their luxuriant branches around the elms. The grapes,
overripe, had fallen on the ground, or hung purple, or burnished green,
among the red and yellow leaves. The ears of standing corn winnowed to
emptiness by the spendthrift winds; the fallen foliage of the trees, the
weed-grown brooks, the dusky olive, now spotted with its blackened fruit;
the chestnuts, to which the squirrel only was harvest-man; all plenty, and
yet, alas! all poverty, painted in wondrous hues and fantastic groupings
this land of beauty. In the towns, in the voiceless towns, we visited the
churches, adorned by pictures, master-pieces of art, or galleries of
statues--while in this genial clime the animals, in new found liberty,
rambled through the gorgeous palaces, and hardly feared our forgotten
aspect. The dove-coloured oxen turned their full eyes on us, and paced
slowly by; a startling throng of silly sheep, with pattering feet, would
start up in some chamber, formerly dedicated to the repose of beauty, and
rush, huddling past us, down the marble staircase into the street, and
again in at the first open door, taking unrebuked possession of hallowed
sanctuary, or kingly council-chamber. We no longer started at these
occurrences, nor at worse exhibition of change--when the palace had
become a mere tomb, pregnant with fet