severity
suggest, not the innocence of childhood, nor the glorious bewilderment
of youth, but the conscious achievements of maturity. Perseus and
Judith, Hercules and Thusnelda, they have done or suffered something,
and though they are immortal, immortality has come to them after
experience, not before. Here, not only in the solitude of Nature, might
a hero meet a goddess, or a heroine a god.

"Charlotte!" cried the girl suddenly. "Here's an idea. What if we popped
off to Rome to-morrow--straight to the Vyses' hotel? For I do know what
I want. I'm sick of Florence. No, you said you'd go to the ends of the
earth! Do! Do!"

Miss Bartlett, with equal vivacity, replied:

"Oh, you droll person! Pray, what would become of your drive in the
hills?"

They passed together through the gaunt beauty of the square, laughing
over the unpractical suggestion.

Chapter VI: The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager,
Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte
Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a
View; Italians Drive Them.

It was Phaethon who drove them to Fiesole that memorable day, a youth
all irresponsibility and fire, recklessly urging his master's horses up
the stony hill. Mr. Beebe recognized him at once. Neither the Ages of
Faith nor the Age of Doubt had touched him; he was Phaethon in Tuscany
driving a cab. And it was Persephone whom he asked leave to pick up on
the way, saying that she was his sister--Persephone, tall and slender
and pale, returning with the Spring to her mother's cottage, and still
shading her eyes from the unaccustomed light. To her Mr. Eager objected,
saying that here was the thin edge of the wedge, and one must guard
against imposition. But the ladies interceded, and when it had been made
clear that it was a very great favour, the goddess was allowed to mount
beside the god.

Phaethon at once slipped the left rein over her head, thus enabling
himself to drive with his arm round her waist. She did not mind.
Mr. Eager, who sat with his back to the horses, saw nothing of the
indecorous proceeding, and continued his conversation with Lucy. The
other two occupants of the carriage were old Mr. Emerson and Miss
Lavish. For a dreadful thing had happened: Mr. Beebe, without consulting
Mr. Eager, had doubled the size of the party. And though Miss Bartlett
and Miss Lavish had planned all the morning how the people were to sit,
at the cr