"Now, Mr. Blake, you will be obliged to play Ernest Maltravers to one of us."
"Indeed, young lady! and do you mean to imply that 're-peopling some lonely scene for you, with the heroes and legends of old, unrolling before you the lore of the ancients, and thus lighting it up with a light once its own,' would be at all the same thing done by a rough, grey-headed old man, as by an Ernest Maltravers? If so, I am afraid I must say that you are a sad deceiver. Now, I'll lay a wager on it you are thinking of some one who could play Ernest Maltravers to your Valerie de Ventadour, very much to your satisfaction?"
Mr. Blake chuckled with delight as he saw Flora get red and turn away her head.
Thus the day passed quickly away, and about five in the evening they arrived at Civitta Castellana, where they were to sleep on the first night of their journey.
It took them about six days to travel from Rome to Florence by this route. Were we to follow them step by step, we should be writing a guide-book and not a story. Nevertheless, we cannot pass by in silence two such spots as the Falls of Terni and Assisi. Byron says that the view of the falls either from above or below is worth that of all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put together. The Staubach, Reichenfels, are rills in comparative appearance. Who could forget his description of the contrast between the "giant element leaping from rock to rock with delicious bound," and the lovely smiling valley by which the falls are surrounded? It is indeed
"Love, watching madness with unutterable mien."
Then the church of Assisi, with all its wealth of interest! To the lover of the picturesque, of art, or of religion, it has special attractions. Dante sings the loveliness of its site; Cimabue and Giotto's works adorn its walls, and mark the progress of painting; and Saint Francis throws over it a halo which dims the glory of poet and artist, and makes Assisi—for those who know and love his life—another holy land. Such is the creative power of charity or love. Centuries ago, Saint Francis died in self-imposed poverty and privation, barely covered with the cloak of another; yet hardly had the grave closed over him, when a structure, matchless even in Italy, was built in his honour, and the precious germs of love and self-sacrifice which he planted in the hearts of his spiritual children went on fructifying until his Order spread itself throughout Christendom, and now blesses the world almost in spite of itself.
Our friends thought that if this route could boast of Assisi alone, it would have been almost unrivalled; but Assisi was only its crowning point. It traverses a track of country, for upwards of two hundred miles, where beauty, history, and poetry combine to give a charm to all around. The vale of Clitumnus and its stream—
"Haunt of river nymph!"
the lake of Thrasimene, where Hannibal and his swarthy hosts revelled in their sanguinary victory over the brave Flaminius; the towns perched on mountain-tops, and surrounded by deep romantic ravines, where still stand a ruined arch or pier to tell of the massive bridges which once spanned them—the colossal works of the mighty Romans.