But, as Isabel was always sighing to possess every beautiful thing she saw, and, if it were possible, would have had the Vatican for her abode and St. Peter’s for a private chapel, nobody took her longings very much to heart; the less so, moreover, as she managed to live a very gay and happy life in spite of those unsatisfied longings.
Other pretty things had come in during their morning’s absence: a pile of books, old copies of the Italian poets newly bound over in white vellum with red edges to the leaves, a pile of Roman photographs which were to be sent to America, and a collection of little squares of marbles, porphyries, and alabasters, a stone rainbow, destined also for America.
“But we need photographs in Rome,” the Signora said. “Looking at them, we discover a thousand beauties which we missed when we saw the original.”
A strange croaking sound drew the attention of the girls to the windows, and they saw a little caravan of crates carried past on carts, going from the railway station to the great markets of the city.
Out of the holes in these crates protruded heads and necks of every sort of fowl—turkeys, hens, ducks, and pigeons. The poor wretches, huddled and crowded together, seemed to know that they were on their way to execution, and to implore the pity of the bystanders.
Bianca pressed her lips together and said nothing; Isabel leaned out and contemplated them with a smile. “Those dear turkeys!” she said with the greatest affection.
“You like them?” the Signora asked, rather surprised that any one should choose pets so grotesque.
“Yes, immensely!” was the reply. “They’re so nice roasted.”
And then, obliterating this painful and awkward reminder of what lay under the surface of their daily comforts, came a piercingly-sweet chorus of trumpets, twenty trumpets playing together. A regiment was passing, going from a camp in one part of the city to a camp in another part. The men were dressed in gray linen, and, in the distance, were hardly to be distinguished from the street, and their bearing was not very soldier-like; but the wild and sunny music gave a soul and meaning to them, and, rising through the hot and silent noon, stirred even the most languid pulses.
“War will never be done away with till trumpets are abolished,” Mr. Vane said. “I have no doubt that even I should make a very good fighter if I had a band of them in full blast at my elbow while the battle lasted. It wouldn’t do for them to stop, though. Fancy a charge for which no trumpet sounded! It would no more go off, you know, than a gun would without powder. Why doesn’t somebody