rietor, of the Palazzo had mulcted them some six scudi
for Lalla's profuse breakages of glass and crockery during our stay.

It was early morning when we set out, and only the faithful Thompsons
were there to bid us farewell. Lalla and her tribe, however, were
on hand, and violently demanded the satisfaction of their iniquitous
claims. "No!" said my father, and "No!" said my mother, like the judges
of the Medes and Persians. Thereupon the whole House of Lalla, but Lalla
and her mother especially, gave us an example of what an Italian can do
in the way of cursing an enemy. Ancient forms of malediction, which had
been current in the days of the early Roman kings, were mingled with
every damning invention that had been devised during the Middle Ages,
and ever since then; and they were all hurled at us in shrill, screaming
tones, accompanied by fell and ominous gestures and inarticulate yells
of superheated frenzy. Nothing could surpass the volubility of this
cursing, unless it were the animosity which prompted it; no crime that
anybody, since Cain slew Abel, had or could have committed deserved
a tenth part of the calamities and evil haps which this preposterous
family called down upon our heads, who had committed no crime at
all, but quite the contrary. When, in after-years, I heard Booth, as
Richelieu, threaten "the curse of Rome" upon his opponents, I shuddered,
wondering whether he had any notion what the threat meant. Through it
all my mother's ordinarily lovely and peaceful countenance expressed
a sad but unalterable determination; and my father kept smiling in a
certain dangerous way that he sometimes had in moments of great peril or
stress, but said nothing; while Mr. Thompson indignantly called upon
the cursers to cease and to beware, and my dear friend Eddy looked
distressed to the verge of tears. He squeezed my hand as I got into the
_vettura_, and told me not to mind--the Lalla people were wicked,
and their ill-wishes would return upon their own heads. A handful of
ten-cent pieces, or their Roman equivalent, would have stopped the whole
outcry and changed it into blessings; but I think my father would not
have yielded had the salvation of Rome and of all Italy depended
upon it. His eyes gleamed, as I have seen them do on one or two other
occasions only, as we drove away, with the screams pursuing us, and that
smile still hovered about his mouth. But we drove on; Gaetano cracked
his long whip, our four steeds pic