ked up their feet and rattled our
vehicle over the Roman cobble-stones; we passed the Porta del Popolo,
and were stretching along, under the summer sunshine, upon the white
road that led to Florence. It was a divine morning; the turmoil and the
strife were soon forgotten, and for a week thenceforward there was
only unalloyed felicity before us. Poor, evil-invoking Lalla had passed
forever out of our sphere.

XVIII

In Othello's predicament--Gaetano--Crystals and snail-
shells--Broad, flagstone pavements--Fishing-rods and blow-
pipes--Ghostly yarns--Conservative effects of genius--An
ideal bust and a living one--The enigma of spiritualism--A
difficult combination to overthrow--The dream-child and the
Philistine--Dashing and plunging this way and that--Teresa
screamed for mercy--Grapes and figs and ghostly voices--My
father would have settled there--Kirkup the necromancer--A
miraculous birth--A four-year-old medium--The mysterious
touch--An indescribable horror--Not even a bone of her was
left--Providence takes very long views.

The railroad which now unites Rome with Florence defrauds travellers
of some of the most agreeable scenery in Italy, and one of the most
time-honored experiences; and as for the beggars who infested the route,
they must long since have perished of inanition--not that they needed
what travellers gave them in the way of alms, but that, like Othello,
their occupation being gone, they must cease to exist. Never again could
they look forward to pestering a tourist; never exhibit a withered arm
or an artistic ulcer; never mutter anathemas against the obdurate, or
call down blessings upon the profuse. What was left them in life? And
what has become of the wayside inns, and what of the vetturinos? A
man like Gaetano, by himself, was enough to modify radically one's
conception of the possibilities of the Italian character. In appearance
he was a strong-bodied Yankee farmer, with the sun-burned, homely,
kindly, shrewd visage, the blue jumper, the slow, canny ways, the silent
perception and enjoyment of humorous things, the infrequent but timely
speech. It was astonishing to hear him speaking Italian out of a mouth
which seemed formed only to emit a Down-East drawl and to chew tobacco.
In disposition and character this son of old Rome was, so far as we,
during our week of constant and intimate association with him, could
judge, absolutely wit