understand, and, while we were seeking
this outlet for our grief, she followed us as far as she could on her
poor, broken aqueducts. At places they gave way under her, and she fell
down, but scrambled up again on the next stretch of arches, like some
fond cripple pursuing a friend on crutches; when at last our train
outran them, and there was no longer an arch to halt upon, she gave up
the vain chase and turned back within her walls, where we saw her domes
and bell-towers fading into the heaven to which they pointed.

It was a heaven of better than absolute blue, for there were soft, white
clouds in it, and the air that our Sunday breathed under it was, at the
beginning of April, as bland as that of an American May-end. The orchard
trees were in bloom--peach and plum, cherry and pear--whenever you chose
to look at them, and all nature seemed to rejoice in the cessation of
the two days' strike which had now enabled us to drive to the station
instead of walking and carrying our bags and bundles. There were so many
of these that we had taken two cabs, and at the station our drivers
attempted to rejoice with nature in an overcharge that would have
recouped them for the loss suffered in their recent leisure. But as we
were then leaving Koine, and were not yet melted with the grief of
absence, I had the courage to resist their demand. Long before we
reached Leghorn I was so Romesick that I would have paid them anything
they asked.

When we emerged from the suburbs upon the open Campagna, we passed
through many fields of wheat, more than we had yet seen on the grassy
waste, but there were also many flocks of sheep feeding with the cattle
in pastures. Now and then we passed a wretched hut which seemed to be
the dwelling of the shepherds we saw tending the flocks, and here and
there we came upon a group of farm buildings, all of straw, whether for
man or beast, set within a sort of squalid court, with a frowzy
suggestion of old women and children about the doors of the cottages. We
saw no men, though there must have been men off at work in the fields
with the younger women.

As we drew near Civita Vecchia the sea widened on our view, wild with a
wind that seemed to have been blowing ever since the stormy evening in
1865 when, after looking at the tossing ships in the harbor, we decided
to take the diligence for Leghorn, rather than the little steamer we had
meant to take. From our pleasant train we now patronized Civita Vecch