"Oh, many probably work in the fields below there, young as well as old. Though they don't need the protection of a fortified town, as they did in the Middle Ages, they still love to huddle together."
Before returning to the hotel, the two went to another edge of the town. A public garden covered the site of the old fortress, but from a ruin of the ancient castle they formed an idea of what it had been in its days of usefulness.
"Give me your camera for a moment," cried Marion, as Irma leaned against the wall looking over the Valley of the Tiber, toward the Umbrian hills.
"Now, stand still, just as you are," and when she heard the click she turned to thank Marion.
"You must be a thought reader. I was wishing I might have a picture taken here to send home, but——"
"You weren't afraid to ask me?"
"Well—you might have thought I was vain—or something. It always seems so silly to wish to have one's own picture taken. But this is for Gertrude. She tried to make me promise to have one taken in every town we visited."
"I really believe you'd rather please Gertrude than any one else. I am almost sorry I took the photograph." Marion turned away half angrily, and Irma could not tell whether or not he was in earnest, as they followed the custodian of the garden, who had been insisting that they must see the pozzo, or old well.
When they had looked down into its gloomy depths of a couple of hundred feet the man seemed rather disappointed that neither of them would descend part way.