he
Arno, where some of them have condescended to the office of hotels, and
where, I believe, one might live in economy and comfort; or, at any
rate, I should like to try. It would get rather warm there in May, and
July and August are not to be thought of, but all the other year it
would be divine, with such a prospect as can hardly be matched anywhere
else. Pisa used once to be the resort of many seeking health or warmth,
and for mere climate it ought again to come into favor. Probably there
is reasonably accessible society there, and, as the Livornese believe,
there is at least excellent opera. The time might grow long, but ought
not to be very heavy, and there is a cafe, at the very finest point of
the curve, where you can get an excellent cup of tea. Whether this
attests the resort or sojourn of many English, or the growth of the
tea-habit among the Pisans, I cannot say, but that cafe is very
charming, with students standing about in it and admiring the ladies who
come in to buy pastry, and who do not suppose there is any one there to
look at them. I am sure that the handsome mother with the pretty
daughter who lingered so long over their choice of little cakes could
not have imagined any one was looking, or she would at once have taken
macaroons and hurried away: at that cafe they have macaroons almost
three inches across, and delicious.

[Illustration: 48 WITH ALMOST ANY OF MY BACKGROUNDS]

The whole keeping was so pleasant that we hated to leave it to the
lengthening shadows from the other shore, but we were to drive down the
Arno into the promenade that follows it, I do not know how far; with the
foolish greed of travel, we wanted to get in all of Pisa that we could,
even if we tore ourselves from its most tempting morsel. But it was all
joy, and I should like, at this moment, to be starting on that
enchanting drive again. I leave the reader to imagine the lovely scenery
for himself; almost any of my many backgrounds will serve; but I will
supply him with a piece of statistics such as does not fall in
everybody's way. We noted the great number of anglers who lined the
opposite bank, with no appearance of catching anything, and I asked our
driver if they never happened to get a bite. "Not in the daytime," he
explained, compassionately, "but as soon as the evening comes they get
all the fish they want."

I could pour out on the reader many other Pisan statistics, but they
would be at second-hand. After long vici