our City
of Justice and proving that the world does move." And I gin a queer
look onto Miss Meechim and sez:

"I hope you won't be persecuted for it."

Miss Meechim looked some like her sirname with the last letter changed
to n. But to resoom: The galleries of Florence contains priceless
pictures and statuary, so many of 'em that to enjoy them as you
should, and want to, would take years. Why, in the hall of Niobe I
wanted to stay for days to cry and weep and enjoy myself. I took my
linen handkerchief out of my pocket to have it ready, for I laid out
to weep some, and did, the mother's agony wuz so real, holdin' one
child while the rest wuz grouped about her in dyin' agony. One of the
sons looked so natural, and his expression of despair and sufferin'
wuz so intense that Arvilly said:

"I believe he drinked, his face shows a guilty conscience, and his ma
looks jest as the mother of drunkards always looks."

I told her that the death of Niobe's children wuz caused by envy and
jealousy, which duz just such things to-day as fur as they dast all
the way from New York to Jonesville, and so on through the surroundin'
world. Sez I, "Apollo and Diana killed 'em all just because Niobe had
such beautiful children and so many of 'em and wuz naterally proud and
had boasted about 'em some, and Apollo and Diana didn't want their ma
looked down on and run upon because she had only two children, and
probable their ma bein' envious and jealous sot 'em up."

But Arvilly wouldn't give up; she said a ma would always try to cover
up things and insisted on it to the last that she should always
believe they drinked and got into a fight with Latony's boy and girl.

"No," sez I agin, "it wuz Envy and Jealousy that took aim and did this
dretful deed."

Josiah sez: "Why didn't Ni-obe keep her mouth shet then?"

Well, it wuz vain to enjoy deep emotions in the face of such
practicality. I put up my handkerchief and moved off into another
room.

Besides pictures, these galleries contain rare gems of art in bronze,
crystal, precious stones, coins, arms, helmets, etc., etc. Enough as I
say to keep one's mind rousted up and busy for years and years.

Dorothy said she couldn't leave Florence without seeing the house
where Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived and writ her immortal poems and
I felt jest so; I felt that I must see the place sanctified by her
pure spirit and genius. So Robert Strong got a carriage and took
Dorothy and me there one