"If I hadn't come to Perugia," she said to Uncle Jim, "I suppose I shouldn't have known what I had missed, but now it seems as if I shouldn't have really known Italy without coming here. It is so much larger than Orvieto, and brighter, and yet it is a hill town with streets that tumble into one another, and picturesque arches, and though it hasn't an Orvieto Cathedral, it has more beautiful churches than one expects to find in a place of its size. Then that perfect little Merchants' Exchange! One could spend a day there studying the frescoes. There are more quaint carvings on the outside of the buildings than in most places we have seen, and in spite of this broad main street, with the trolley cars running through it, it seems still a mediæval town, a cheerful one, not a melancholy one like San Gimignano. Then I shall be very proud when I go home to say that I have actually been in the house where Raphael lived and taught before the world knew how great he really was."
"A long speech for a little girl," said Uncle Jim, "but it doesn't explain your unwillingness to stay with your aunt this morning while she makes a careful study of the exhibition of Umbrian art."
"Why, I think it does explain it. I was there long enough to learn Perugino by heart, his funny little bodyless angels, and his young men with thin, graceful legs and small skull caps, and of course his beautiful color."
Uncle Jim laughed at Irma's characterization of Perugino. "And is that all you remember of that great building with its treasures of art, as the books might say?"
"Of course not," said Irma indignantly. "I remember quantities of other things. Raphael, and all those strange, pious Umbrian painters, and the beautiful silver chalices from the churches, and all the carved crucifixes. On the ship going home Aunt Caroline will be able to talk to us for hours about these things, describing them exactly. Isn't it much better for a girl of my age to enjoy this lovely view? Come, let us sit down on a bench in the little piazza in front of the hotel. As we look off to the valley, so far below, we seem to be on the edge of a high mountain. Every one in Perugia seems to enjoy the view. See, there are two soldiers strolling about; a group of priests; well to do children riding around in that donkey cart; half a dozen others who are almost in rags watching them; several strangers besides ourselves; two or three dignitaries of the town. So it's a very popular place."
Again Uncle Jim smiled at Irma's astuteness. Then he left her to enjoy the view still longer, while he went down to the Municipal Building, to "rescue" Aunt Caroline, as he expressed it, from too long a stay at the exhibition of Umbrian art.
On her return to Florence the next evening, Irma wrote Lucy about her visit to Assisi. She had promised this before she left home, as Lucy had especially asked her to see for herself the thornless roses growing in St. Francis's Garden.