te mountains
that girdled the country round.

By and by the mountains dwindled to hills, purple and blue in the
distance, misty spring-green in the foreground; in place of the
dandelions of yesterday we had a carpet of buttercups woven in gold on
either side of the road. There was always the river, too; and, as Maida
said, water brightens a landscape as a diamond brightens a ring.

The air was as warm now as on the Riviera but there was a tingle of
youth and spring in it, while at Cap Martin it was already heavy with
the perfume of summer flowers. And we had not to be sorry for poor
people to-day, for there were no poverty-stricken villages. The country
was rich, every inch cultivated, and there were comfortable farms with
tall, important-looking gateways. But, then, Mr. Barrymore told us that
it was no safer to judge an Italian farm by its gateway than an Italian
village shop by the contents of its windows.

After a while, just as we might have begun to tire of the far-reaching
plain, it broke into billows, each earthy wave crested by a ruined
chateau, or a still thriving mediaeval town. Bra was the finest, with a
grand old red-brown castle towering high on a hill, and throwing a cool
shadow all across the hot, white road below.

"We must stop in Asti, if it's but for ten minutes," said Sir Ralph.

"Why?" asked Maida, over her shoulder (she was sitting in the front seat
again, where Mr. Barrymore had contrived to put her). "Do you mean on
account of Vittorio Alfieri?"

"Who is he?" inquired Mamma; and I was wondering, too; but I hate to
show that I don't know things Maida knows.

"Oh, he was a charming poet, born in Asti in the middle of the
eighteenth century," said Maida. "I've read a lot about him, at--at
home. He had one of the prettiest love stories in history. It is like an
Anthony Hope romance. I thought, perhaps, Sir Ralph wanted us to see the
house where he lived."

"I'm ashamed to say it was the Asti Spumante I was thinking of,"
confessed Sir Ralph. "It's a wine for children, but it might amuse you
all to taste it on its native heath; and you could drink the health of
Vittorio Alfieri--in a better world."

Mamma thought that proceeding rather too Popish for a professed
Presbyterian; nevertheless, we decided to have the wine. We approached
Asti by way of a massive gateway, which formed a part of the ancient
fortifications of the city; and though we had seen several others rather
like it since coming