We had a very nice work class. Andy reads while I attend to the people. They were anxious to hear about you, and were touched at your sending the little presents to the children.... I think I have got a much better set of tenants. M. is very anxious to pay; still I feel it so uncertain with his health in that state. You know he was a year without work; and when he got it, he was too weak and gave himself an internal strain....

It was so nice to see how the pupils had thought of the poor children, and had brought little presents. Mary had brought an ivy root and fern roots, and clothes for the work class. Louisa had cut out and made entirely a lovely dress and jacket for Alice P., and had dressed some very pretty dolls, and brought some splendid flowers. Harriet had gathered blackberries and made them into jam. It is so nice that they remembered and cared for these things in their holidays.

20, Via dei Serragli, Florence,

October 10th, 1867.

To Emily.

EXPERIENCES ON THE JOURNEY TO ITALY

Here I am safe and sound at last, and very cheery and bright. Dear Aunt Emily is so kind; and there is something genial and homelike about being here. The journey from Chambery was very interesting, the Mt. Cenis was so impressive; it was too dark for me really to see it, and perhaps I a good deal misunderstood the things I did see; but it was very quiet and awful and solemn, sitting up in the banquette, so wholly alone as I felt, in the near presence of the great peaks and gulfs and winds and snow; sometimes foaming streams glittered for a few minutes far below; sometimes a great cloud of mist came slowly down and wrapped us round; the horses were many of them grey, and looked very ghostly and unreal under the lamp-light; but their shadows looked like real black horses tearing along. Altogether, it was weird and wild, and I liked it. I had a very stupid companion; but happily he relapsed into perfect silence during the whole time. He was such a forlorn and stupid young Irishman whom I had picked up. He had been travelling with two companions, had got out of the train, and it had gone on without him. He could not speak one word of either French or Italian, and was going to Rome; they had his luggage and his passport. He was very tall, and very miserable, and I had to take pity on him, and do everything for him; but he certainly was very cowardly. At Turin I was weary, and did not want to have any breakfast; and I asked an energetic Prussian lady, who spoke English and Italian, to take him, and see to him, but he wouldn’t go for a long time; and then, just as all the time was over, he returned and said he thought he’d better stay by me; so, to my no small disgust, I had to rouse myself and take him to his breakfast at Alessandria. However, the best of him was he didn’t speak at all, but only clung piteously to my heels. By the way, writing of travelling companions, Aunt Emily just suggests you would be amused to hear that at Turin I fell in with such a polite and attentive Italian officer, who travelled with me all the way. He surprised me so much by his penetration about everything. You know it is rather troublesome to have an expressive kind of face; and yet it is, I suppose, helpful too. He was extremely kind about the window, tho’ he was very cold; and I didn’t say a word, for I knew it was unreasonable to have it open; but he saw in a moment what I wished, and wouldn’t let me even half shut it. Then we had a great deal of talk about cities and countries; and I asked him if he knew London. Long afterwards he said to me, “You asked me if I knew London; and it was with an accent which told me you love it much, tho’ you do call it an ugly and dirty city.” I told him that the worse it was, the more one was bound to help it; and the more one tried to help it, the more one loved it. He said, “We soldiers have to leave our country to serve it.” And I said, “Yes, it did not matter how, but we must all do it.” I kept catching glimpses of the mountains in the distance, and presently he said, “There is something out there which pleases you from time to time.” So I told him what it was; and after that he was so kind in warning me to look here or there, for the mountains would be in sight.... He behaved extremely well, and I think he thought I was the queerest creature he ever saw.... He was rather sneering at the Prussian lady for being une savante and for travelling alone. I was, looking out of the window and thinking. He said, “You smile continually; one sees that you think of what is dear to you. Are you thinking of your country?” So I just told him I was thinking one could travel alone or do this or that or anything when one was really sure that God was with one; and that one often knew it best when one was alone. Then I said all things, all people, help one. “But,” he persisted, “those who really are brave because they know this, they do all things with a different manner, such a manner that all who meet them feel too that they are in His presence and under His protection.”

Well, I was very thankful for the dear home letters.... I have seen literally nothing of the city as yet. I am to do the picture for Lady Abercrombie. Was it not fortunate I did not go on Saturday from Chambery? A portion of the Mt. Cenis fell and blocked up the road; the diligences had all to be unloaded, and people and luggage carried across a torrent and past the blocked portion of the road to other vehicles beyond.

EXPERIENCES IN FLORENCE

October 18th, 1867.