JUNE 351 



on festal days the young of both sexes walk about the 

 roads in cheerful, happy bands. They never go in 

 couples, as we everlastingly see them on the same occa- 

 sions in England ; but the boys were together, and the 

 girls together. The figures of the women in the long, 

 plain skirts and coloured shirts struck me as very grace- 

 ful and dignified. George Eliot says of Romola : ' Let 

 her muffle herself as she will, everyone wants to see what 

 there is under her veil, for she has that way of walking 

 like a procession.' That is just what one may say of 

 many of these young Tuscan women. She also says : 

 ' There has been no great people without processions, 

 and the man who thinks himself too wise to be moved by 

 them to anything but contempt is like the puddle that 

 was proud of standing alone while the river rushed by.' 



All my early time at Florence was spent in driving 

 about, seeing villas, wandering through the poderes, 

 resting and drawing. For the amateur sketcher, what a 

 mental struggle it is ! whether to give the time to 

 drawing, or to see all one can. One day we started at 

 eight, and drove up to Monte Sennaria, fifteen miles or 

 so, on the Bologna Road. This took us past the villa 

 we lived in as children. I found that all had been much 

 changed and grown up. Even the road which in my 

 day passed between walls out of which grew the large, 

 handsome house was now turned to the left, and the 

 space between it and the villa thickly planted with ever- 

 greens, thus entirely depriving it of its original Italian 

 character. 



I can remember now the mysterious tremble with 

 which I used sometimes to lie awake at night and hear 

 the tinkle of the bell of the dead -cart, as it passed under 

 the windows up to the cemetery on the hill. I had been 

 told no coffins were used, and I always thought some 

 one might wake during the long drive. The morning 



