Chapter III.
In Beautiful Florence.
For to the highest she did still aspyre;
Or, if ought higher were then that, did it desyre.
—Spenser.
CHURCH OF THE ANNUNZIATA, FLORENCE.
One afternoon, about two weeks later, Barbara and Bettina were sitting in their pleasant room in Florence. The wide-open windows looked out upon the slopes of that lovely hill on whose summit is perched Fiesole, the poor little old mother of Florence, who still holds watch over her beautiful daughter stretched at her feet. Scented airs which had swept all the way from distant blue hills over countless orange, olive, and mulberry groves filled the room, and fluttered the paper upon which the girls were writing; it was their weekly letter budget.