their reflections reflecting.

Also there is one beautiful Tobias and the Angel there by a painter
whose name I most ungratefully forget. I saw a man yesterday carrying
fishes in the market, each strung through the gills on a twig of myrtle:
that is how Tobias ought to carry his fish: when a native custom
suggests old paintings, how charming it always is!

Riva.

We have just got here from Verona. In the matter of the garden at least
it is a Paradise of a place. A great sill of honeysuckle leans out from
my window: beyond is a court grown round with creepers, and beyond that
the garden--such a garden! The first thing one sees is an arcade of
vines upon stone pillars, between which peep stacks of roses, going off
a little from their glory now, and right away stretches an alley of
green, that shows at the end, a furlong off, the blue glitter of water.
It is a beautifully wild garden: grass and vegetables and trees and
roses all grow in a jungle together. There are little groves of bamboo
and chestnut and willow; and a runnel of water is somewhere--I can hear
it. It suggests rest, which I want; and so, for all its difference,
suggests you, whom also I want,--more, I own it now, than I have said!
But that went without saying, Beloved, as it always must if it is to be
the truth and nothing short of the truth.

While this has been waiting to go, your letter has been put into my hands.
I am too happy to say words about it, and can afford now to let this go as
it is. The little time of waiting for you will be perfect happiness now;
and your coming seems to color all that is behind as well. I have had a
good time indeed, and was only wearying with the plethora of my enjoyment:
but the better time has been kept till now. We shall be together day after
day and all day long for at least a month, I hope: a joy that has never
happened to us yet.

Never mind about the lost letter now, dearest, dearest: Venice was a
little empty just one week because of it. I still hope it will come; but
what matter?--I know _you_ will. All my heart waits for you.--Your most
glad and most loving.

LETTER XLII.

Dearest: I saw an old woman riding a horse astride: and I was convinced on
the spot that this is the rightest way of riding, and that the sidesaddle
was a foolish and affected invention. The horse was fine, and so was the
young man leading it: the old woman was upright and stately, with a wide
hat and full petticoats like