We would suffocate with heat.
We would be poisoned with malaria.
We would have chills, and consequently fevers.
The fruit would make us sick, the wine would turn sour while we were pouring it out, and we would be kept awake all night by people in the street.
We would have no one to speak to, for everybody would be gone out of town.
Besides, and above all, it was not the proper thing to do.
I do not believe that either of us was serious in first making the proposal, unless Bianca cherished such a wish under her pensive silence; but so much opposition led us to look at the project, and we did not find it so bad as might have been expected. Besides, no one with a particle of spirit likes to be scouted and talked down; and all of us had spirit enough to feel a little vexed at the storm of opposition we had brought about our ears—all except Mr. Varney. He was too indolent to resent anything.
“I do not believe that there is the least necessity for having a fever in Rome,” said Isabel. (It was nearly always Isabel who spoke.) “One has but to select a cool apartment and use a little prudence. If we were to do as I have seen people do here—go from the oven to the refrigerator—we [pg 659] should know what to expect. To walk in a sunny street till you are in a perspiration, then sit on a shady stone to cool off, is not only inviting a fever, but sending a gendarme to fetch it. As for heat, New York is ten times hotter; and I once passed a whole summer in New York, and was quite comfortable; wasn't I, papa? Then, how any one can say that we shall have no one to speak to I cannot imagine. Here are four of us; and I take perfect delight in talking to myself. The most interesting conversations I ever had in my life were with Miss Isabel Varney.”
“Besides,” said a clear voice from the window, “what we came to Rome to see doesn't go away in the summer.”
We all looked at Bianca, who had turned her head toward us to speak, and was gazing out the window again, the lace curtain wrapped about her like a bridal veil, and the persienne half closed to shield her from the many eyes in the piazza.