"Families do get so bored by one another travelling," said Richard. "That's one reason I hoped we might take this trip together. Any one who grows particularly tired of any one else has only to ask to exchange to the other carriage. Ellen and I usually get on very well together, but Katie——"
"Hush, Richard," and Ellen laid a warning finger on her brother's lips.
The road over which they travelled was hard and smooth, and although houses were few, there was much of interest on every side. Richard invented many tales by the way, about noble Florentines riding this road, only to be waylaid and killed by Sienese rivals. In his stories the Sienese were always as successful as they were in the paintings on the walls of the public buildings in Siena. Once they stopped to look back, and the coachman chose the most favorable point for a last view of the city wall, with one of the old gates.
Richard and Ellen both understood Italian, and spoke it fairly well.
"I have just been complimenting the cocchiere on his accent," said Richard, "and he took it quite as a matter of course. He says that every one knows that only in Siena can one hear the true Italian, and that the strangers who wish to speak Tuscan properly come to Siena to study."
"I thought that it was Florence where one must go," said Ellen.
"Hush, hush," whispered Richard; "if our coachman should understand you, I should fear for our lives. The very horses might run away and dash us into a ditch. Florence and Siena forsooth!"
The coachman himself did his part in entertaining them. He pointed out the entrance to one estate, and told a story or two about its owner, whose house was set far back and hidden from the road by extensive woods.