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r; and the loss she felt was the loss of love,--not Howard's love--but love for itself alone. She was not just the same girl she was when she had entered Florence a few months ago, nor ever again would be; and between her and Bettina,--the sisters who before this had been "as one soul in two bodies,"--ran a mysterious Rubicon, the outer shore of which Bettina's feet had not yet touched. The hasty return of Mr. Sumner and Malcom with two lusty _facchini_, who seized the hand-luggage, the hurry to be among the first at the opening of the big doors upon the platform beside which their train was drawn up, and the little bustle of excitement consequent on the desire to secure an entire compartment for their party filled the next few minutes, and soon they were off. The journey led through a charming country lying at the base of the Apennines. Picturesque castles and city-crowned hills against the background of blue mountains, many of whose summits were covered with gleaming snow, kept them looking and exclaiming with delight, until finally they reached Lucca, and, sweeping in a half circle around Monte San Giuliano, which, as Dante wrote, hides the two cities, Lucca and Pisa, from each other, they arrived at Pisa. Although they expected to find an old, worn-out city, yet only Mr. Sumner and Mrs. Douglas were quite prepared for the dilapidated carriages that were waiting to take them from the station to their hotels; for the almost deserted streets, and the general pronounced air of decadence. Even the Arno seemed to have lost all freshness, and left all beauty behind as it flowed from Florence, and was here only a swiftly flowing mass of muddy waters. After having taken possession of their rooms in one of the hotels which look out upon the river, and having lunched in the chilly dining room, which they found after wandering through rooms and halls filled with marble statues and bric-a-brac set forth to tempt the eyes of travellers, and so suggestive of the quarries in which the neighboring mountains are rich, they started forth for that famous group of sacred buildings which gives Pisa its present fame. They were careful to enter the Cathedral by the richly wrought door in the south transept (the only old one left) and, passing the font of holy water, above which stands a _Madonna and Child_ designed by Michael Angelo, sat down beneath Andrea del Sarto's _St. Agnes_, and listened to Mr. Sumner's description of the
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