amiliar to everybody; the pretty
crowd of men and women, dotted with pink and set off by the neutral
colour of the winter fields; the hunters of all ages, and sizes, and
breeds, led slowly up and down by the grooms; while from time to time
some rider gets into the saddle and makes himself comfortable, assures
himself of girth and stirrup, and of the proper disposal of the
sandwich-box and sherry-flask, gives a final word of instruction to his
groom, and then moves slowly off. A Roman meet is a little less
business-like than the same thing elsewhere; there is a little more
dawdling, a little more conversation when many ladies chance to have come
to see the hounds throw off; otherwise it is not different from other
meets. As for the Roman mountains, they are so totally unlike any other
hills in the world, and so extremely beautiful in their own peculiar way,
that to describe them would be an idle and a useless task, which could
only serve to exhibit the vanity of the writer and the feebleness of his
pen.

Don Giovanni arrived early in spite of his sleepless night. He descended
from his dogcart by the roadside, instead of driving into the field, and
he took a careful survey of the carriages he saw before him. Conspicuous
in the distance he distinguished Donna Tullia Mayer standing among a
little crowd of men near Valdarno's drag. She was easily known by her
dress, as Del Ferice had remarked on the previous evening. On this
occasion she wore a costume in which the principal colours were green and
yellow, an enormous hat, with feathers in the same proportion surmounting
her head, and she carried a yellow parasol. She was a rather handsome
woman of middle height, with unnaturally blond hair, and a fairly good
complexion, which as yet she had wisely abstained from attempting to
improve by artificial means; her eyes were blue, but uncertain in their
glance--of the kind which do not inspire confidence; and her mouth was
much admired, being small and red, with full lips. She was rapid in her
movements, and she spoke in a loud voice, easily collecting people about
her wherever there were any to collect. Her conversation was not
brilliant, but it was so abundant that its noisy vivacity passed current
for cleverness; she had a remarkably keen judgment of people, and a
remarkably bad taste in her opinions of things artistic, from beauty in
nature to beauty in dress, but she maintained her point of view
obstinately, and admitted no co