to partake
to a certain extent the spirit of the enterprise. They all, therefore,
mounted their horses, and, accompanied by their guide, advanced by the
steeper and more direct path.

The ascent begins amongst gardens and vineyards--the vine flowing from
tree to tree, and making of a whole field one continuous harbour. The
path next winds along a vast barren hill-side, utterly without verdure,
whose brown furrows present the appearance of a ploughed field; but the
clods here do not give way to the tread of your animal; you stoop and
touch them, they are of stone, they are the old lava. As you ascend,
these clods grow larger, grow darker, till the narrow road winds between
great blocks of black lava, pitched here and there in the wildest
confusion. You then reach a level piece of road, on which stands the
hermitage.

Here Mr. and Miss Bloomfield paused. The rest proceeded somewhat further
on horseback, till the mountain, taking the shape of a cone, presents a
steep ascent, to be mastered only on foot.

"Let us pause a moment here," said Mildred, when they had dismounted,
"and look at the bay. I have longed several times upon the road to make
a halt, but if I had, it would have been a signal for the general hubbub
of conversation. You," she continued with a smile, "are a sensible
companion, you know how to be silent, or can talk in those snatches or
broken utterances which rather relieve silence than dissipate it, which
do not scare the gentle goddess altogether from our company. Had I asked
my uncle to stop, he would immediately have commenced talking, and
talked till we went on again."

The scene lay outstretched before them in all its beauty, and under an
almost cloudless sky. One peculiar charm of this celebrated bay depends
on the islands scattered on both sides of its entrance, as Capri,
Ischia, and others. These, as you shift your position on the bay,
produce an endless variety--interlacing the azure water with stripes of
blue mountainous land, in the same manner as well-defined clouds are
sometimes set, ridge after ridge, in the clear sky. From their present
point of view, the centre of their picture was open sea, and the sides
filled up and diversified by these islands. Seen under the mid-day sun,
they appear invested in _a mist of light_.

"They rise from the deep blue sea like sapphires that love has breathed
upon," said Winston. "What fantastic tricks," he continued, "but always
beautiful--Nature plays