ow and then, or a barefooted peasant. The sight of a
pink parasol never startles us into unpleasant theories of comparative
anatomy. One cause, perhaps, may be that on account of political
matters it is a delightfully 'bad season,' but, also, we are too
high for the ordinary walkers, who keep to the valley and the flatter
roads. Robert is better, looking better, and in more healthy spirits;
and we are both enjoying this great sea of mountains and our way of
life here altogether. Of course, we remembered to go back to Florence
for baby and the rest of our little establishment, and we mean to
stay as long as we can, perhaps to the end of October. Baby is in
the triumph of health and full-blown roses, and as he does not hide
himself in the woods like his ancestors, but smiles at everybody, he
is the most popular of possible babies.... We had him baptised
before we left Florence, without godfathers and godmothers, in the
simplicities of the French Lutheran Church. I gave him your kiss as a
precious promise that you would love him one day like a true dear
Aunt Nina; and I promise you on my part that he shall be taught
to understand both the happiness and the honour of it. Robert is
expecting a visit from his sister in the course of this autumn. She
has suffered much, and the change will be good for her, even if, as
she says, she can stay with us only a few weeks. With her we shall
have your book, to be disinherited of which so long has been hard on
us. Robert's own we have not seen yet. It must be satisfactory to you
to have had such a clear triumph after all the dust and toil of the
way. And now tell me, won't it be _necessary_ for you to come again to
Italy for what remains to be done? Poor Florence is quiet enough under
the heel of Austria, and Leopold 'l'intrepido,' as he was happily
called by a poet of Viareggio in a welcoming burst of inspiration,
sits undisturbed at the Pitti. I despair of the republic in Italy, or
rather of Italy altogether. The instructed are not patriotic, and the
patriots are not instructed. We want not only a _man_, but men, and we
must throw, I fear, the bones of their race behind us before the true
deliverers can spring up. Still, it is not all over; there will be
deliverance presently, but it will not be now. We are full of painful
sympathy for poor Venice. There! why write more about politics? It
makes us sick enough to think of Austrians in our Florence without
writing the thought out into gr