Angela looks discontentedly at her own insatiable neighbor and then at Zelphine, so tenderly cared for by hers, and remarks in the crude slang of the day that "Zelphine has a soft thing of it, all right!"
A blooming widow opposite, with a daughter of twelve at her side, wastes the sweetness of her smiles upon the unrequiting feminine company of the pension. The only available man, available, I mean, for excursions and strolls in the Cascine, left this morning for Venice, wearing a bright red necktie which the lady has been knitting for days while he sat by her side in the rose-garden. Angela thought it very unbecoming, because it did not match his hair exactly, scarlet not being the color one would choose for a red-haired man, but then our youngest is overcritical in the matter of color.
Further down the table d'hôte are several widows with daughters, one, two, or three. Zelphine and I have been wondering when the great mortality among American men occurred, as most of the women whom we meet are too young to be relicts of the Civil War. The widow en voyage with grown daughters is the rule. Some few wives are here who have husbands at home; the exception is when paterfamilias accompanies the party, and when he does, I must frankly admit that he looks excessively bored, especially in picture-galleries.
Sunday, May 9th.
Katharine came in this morning, bright and early, with her hands full of roses and her head full of plans. She had been modelling steadily for ten days, and, having reached a convenient stopping-place, announced her intention of taking a vacation of three days, which she would be glad to devote to us and our sight-seeing. Would it please us to go to Fiesole for the day or to Vallombrosa? Zelphine says that we must see Vallombrosa if we would know something of the beauties of Paradise in advance. Milton is said to have drawn his description of the Garden of Eden from the lovely slopes of the Pratomagno. You, ardent lover of the English classics, may recall a passage in the first book of "Paradise Lost," in which Milton speaks of Fiesole and Valdarno, and of
"Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High overarch'd embower."
As Katharine is a delightful cicerone, intelligent and appreciative, her enthusiasm well balanced by common sense, we were charmed by the prospect of three days in her good company, and when she asked us what we would do to-day, I was about to say, properly and politely, that we would go wherever it would please her to take us; but Zelphine interposed, and solemnly protested that it would be quite impossible for her to spend another day in Florence without visiting the grave of Mrs. Browning. Being of a cheerful temper and not given to haunting graveyards, Katharine seemed to have a rather vague idea of the location of the Protestant Cemetery, but she readily consented to Zelphine's request, and by dint of considerable questioning we found it. Not an ideal Campo Santo is this, like that at Rome, where tall cypresses shut it in from the outside world, and where the vast pyramidal Tomb of Caius Cestius overshadows it grandly. Just outside the Porta Pinti is this Protestant burial-ground of Florence. The old walls that once framed it in have been removed, and it now stands in the midst of dusty highways where noisy trams pass to and fro with their freight of eager-eyed tourists. Once inside the enclosure, we found trees and shrubbery, and roses blooming everywhere. Katharine and Angela stood under a tree to rest beneath its grateful shade, while Zelphine walked on and on as if drawn by a magnet, I following her, until we stood before a square marble sarcophagus, simple and dignified, with the initials E. B. B. on one side and the date June 29, 1861. A cedar-tree stands guard by the poet's grave, one branch leaning over it protectingly, roses climb all about it, and as we stood there, silent and reverent, a bird sang from one of the branches overhead, and, like Browning's "wise thrush," he sang his song
"twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture