r, since this is probably the last time in our lives that we shall
have the chance, perhaps, I'll not do the tyrannical father."

They had soon climbed the steep staircase and were quite rewarded by the
magnificent view from the top, a grand panorama of city and river and
green Apennines. Erica looked northward to Fiesole with a fast-throbbing
heart. Yet it seemed as if half a life time lay between the
passion-tossed yesterday and the sad yet peaceful present. Nor was the
feeling a mere delusion; she had indeed in those brief hours lived years
of the spirit life.

She did not stay long at that northern parapet; thoughts of her own
life or even of Brian's would not do just then. She had to think of her
father, to devote herself to him. And somehow, though her heart was
sad, yet her happiness was real as they tried together to make out the
various buildings; and her talk was unrestrained, and even her laughter
natural, not forced; for it is possible to those who really love to
throw themselves altogether into the life of another, and to lay aside
all thought of self.

Once or twice that day she half feared that her father must guess all
that had happened. He was so very careful of her, so considerate; and
for Raeburn to be more considerate meant a great deal for in private
he was always the most gentle man imaginable. His opponents, who
often regarded him as a sort of "fiend in human shape," were strangely
mistaken in their estimate of his character. When treated with
discourtesy or unfairness in public, it was true that he hit back
again, and hit hard; and, since even in the nineteenth century we are
so foolish as to use these weapons against the expression of opinions
we deem mischievous, Raeburn had had a great deal of practice in this
retaliation. He was a very proud and a very sensitive man, not blessed
with overmuch patience. But he held his opinions honestly and had
suffered much for them; he had a real love for humanity and an almost
passionate desire to better his generation. To such a man it was no
light thing to be deemed everything that is vile; like poor Shelley,
he found it exceedingly bitter to let "murderers and traitors take
precedence of him in public opinion." People in general took into
account all his harsh utterances (and some of them were very harsh),
but they rarely thought anything about the provocation received, the
excessively hard life that this man had lived, the gross personal
insults whic