"For luck, of course, signorina; everybody buys the grilli for luck." And then Ludovico sang, in his light, gay Italian fashion but in a voice in which a minor chord seemed to dominate the gay notes:
"'Grillo, mio grillo!
Si tu vo' moglie dillo!'"
To our surprise, the Count joined in Ludovico's song, in a rich bass voice that resounded through the little pergola and brought a crowd of urchins to our retreat with their hands full of grilli in cages. The Count laughed good-humoredly, and presented each one of us with a caged grillo, saying, "For luck, ladies; if the grilli live, the luck will be good; if not," with a shrug, "it may be good all the same."
He then insisted that Angela should buy him a grillo in a cage, which she did laughingly, but which he received quite seriously, looking as if he intended to guard it with his life.
Zelphine, her thirst for knowledge still unsatisfied, asked for information as to the origin of this curious custom.
"It is a custom of great antiquity," replied Ludovico, which, as we have learned by experience, is his method of silencing troublesome American questions that he is unable to answer. The Count, who appeared to be in an especially genial mood, then told us many stories and legends about the grilli, in which fairies and princesses figured quite prominently and goodness was rewarded and wickedness punished after the charmingly judicial fashion of fairyland. One of the prettiest of these tales we found afterwards in Mr. Leland's "Legends of Florence," in the form of a poem called "The King of the Crickets."
About four o'clock a delightful breeze sprang up, and Ludovico proposed that we drive to San Miniato. The suggestion was made apparently on the spur of the moment, and yet when we descended from our airy height to the street below, carriages were awaiting us, not ordinary cabs but fairy coaches fit for princesses.
The drive through the Porta Romana and along the hillside road of Le Colle was enchanting. The church which Michael Angelo called "La Bella Villanella" is beautiful in its simplicity. After we had admired some of the frescoes on the walls—not all of them—and the exquisitely wrought marble screen and pulpit, and explored the crypt with its twenty-eight columns, we were glad to go out upon the marble steps and enjoy from thence the view of Florence in the distance, and the intervening hills covered with olive-groves and vineyards. Count B., who had lingered with Angela in the lovely cypress avenue that leads to the church, joined us on the terrace and took us back into the nave to show us the chapel tomb of young Cardinal Jacopo of the royal house of Portugal, with its beautiful low reliefs by Luca della Robbia. Descanting eloquently upon the virtues and charity of the Portuguese cardinal, who died at an early age, Count B. led us down the steps of the church and out upon the Piazza Michelangelo, where the David stands, as best becomes him, en plein air. You know that the original marble, of which this is an admirable copy in bronze, was sculptured for the Piazza della Signoria. It is now carefully guarded from the elements in the Belle Arti. This noble figure is the embodiment of glorious, inextinguishable youth and strength, and is to me the most inspiring of Michael Angelo's statues.
Zelphine and I walked around the piazza to view the statue from all sides, while Count B. and Ludovico took turns in trying to keep the sun off Angela, whose complexion seems to require unusual care in these days!