through her
neighbours--saw the good in them as well as the weakness--and she was as
friendly, not only in social intercourse, but in spiritual things, with
the worthy village priest as with T.P. Rossetti,[47] the leader of the
Protestant "Brethren," whom she called her pastor. And Ruskin, who had
been driven away from Protestantism by the poor Waldensian at Turin, and
had wandered through many realms of doubt and voyaged through strange
seas of thought, alone, found harbour at last with the disciple of a
modern evangelist, the frequenter of the little meeting-house of outcast
Italian Protestants.

[Footnote 47: A cousin of the artist, and in his way no less remarkable
a man. A short account of his life is given in "D.G. Rossetti, his
family letters," Vol. I., p. 34. The circumstances of his death are
touchingly related by Miss Alexander in "Christ's Folk; in the
Apennine."]

One evening before dinner he brought back to the hotel at Florence a
drawing of a lovely girl lying dead in the sunset; and a little
note-book. "I want you to look over this," he said, in the way, but not
quite in the tone, with which the usual MS. "submitted for criticism"
was tossed to a secretary to taste. It was "The True Story of Ida;
written by her Friend."

An appointment to meet Mr. E.R. Robson, who was making plans for an
intended Sheffield museum, took him back to Lucca, to discuss Romanesque
mouldings and marble facings. Mr. Charles Fairfax Murray also came to
Lucca with drawings commissioned for St. George's Guild. But Ruskin soon
returned to his new friends, and did not leave Florence finally until
he had purchased the wonderful collection of 110 drawings, with
beautifully written text, in which Miss Alexander had enshrined "The
Roadside Songs of Tuscany."

Returning homewards by the Mont Cenis he stayed a while at Talloires, a
favourite haunt, extremely content to be among romantic scenery, and
able to work steadily at a new edition of his books in a much cheaper
form, of which the first volumes were at this time in hand. He had been
making further studies also, in history and Alpine geology; but at last
the snow drove him away from the mountains. So he handed over the
geology to his assistant, who compiled "The Limestone Alps of Savoy"
(supplementary to "Deucalion") "as he could, not as he would," while
Ruskin wrote out the new ideas suggested by his visit to Citeaux and St.
Bernard's birthplace. These notes he completed on the