TO
MY SISTER GRACE
WITHOUT WHOM THIS BOOK
WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN.
AND TO
MY DEAR HELEN R─,
WITHOUT WHOM IT WOULD
HAVE BEEN
DIFFERENT
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| Alone in her room later ... she looked at the other portrait | [Frontispiece] |
| FACING PAGE | |
| After it she still stood a moment, looking toward the sanctuary | [20] |
| “I thought,” said Mrs. Hawthorne, “that you were going to come and take us sight-seeing“ | [82] |
| Aurora, clasping her hands in a delight that could find no words to express it, made a sound like the coo of a dove | [200] |
| Gerald turned, and beheld that lady | [272] |
| Aurora’s eyes, fixed and starry, rested upon the little flame | [290] |
| Aurora, with a comedy of pride, threw up her chin, lifted her arms, and turned as if on a pivot | [316] |
| “Come, let us reason together, Aurora” | [384] |
AURORA THE MAGNIFICENT
CHAPTER I
Near sunset, one day in early October, not too long ago for some of us to remember with distinctness, Mr. Foss, United States consul at Florence, Italy, took a cab, as on other days, to the Porta Romana. Here, where the out-of-town tariff comes into effect, he paid his man, and set out to walk the rest of the way, thus meeting the various needs he felt: that for economy,–he was a family man with daughters to clothe,–that for exercise,–his wife told him he was growing fat,–and the need in general for an opportunity to think. He had found that walking aided reflection, that walking in beautiful places started the spring of apt and generous ideas. Though in his modest way a scholar, he was not as yet an author, but Florence had inspired him with the desire to write a book.