"It seems the most natural thing in the world to me," said her mother. "There are twenty-four hours in the day. Why should we not name each one?"
Then she arranged that Rafael should take them to the station in his boat, on the next day, at the fifteen hours.
HOTEL NEW YORK, FLORENCE, ITALY. October 10, 19--.
_My dear Sir:_--Can you leave your tops for a few moments and read a letter from your American friends, the Spragues?
Although we have been in Florence for more than a month, we have not yet forgotten our visit in Venice and our journey to Verona. We sat by the right-hand window in the train, as you told us to do; but I looked often across the way to see what could take place on the opposite side. Once I saw some storks that had flown down from Strassburg and were standing on their long legs in the marshes.
But our side of the train was truly the more pleasant one. There were grape-vines and mulberry trees and wheat-fields; and also cypress trees, which you did not mention, but which we were glad to see. Then there were big fields of watermelons ripening in the sun, and women gathering them in baskets which they carried on their heads across the fields.
In Verona we went to see the play in the colosseum by moonlight. I have never seen such a performance in our stadium at Harvard, and you have a right to be proud of the great colosseum.
There were four hundred performers on the stage at one time, and the play ended at "the twenty-three hours" with a gunpowder explosion that destroyed the fort,--the play fort, I mean.
And we looked at the tombs of the Scaligers, although I don't know any good reason for doing so; and then we came through the most beautiful country to Florence.
Men and women, dressed in gayest colors, were reaping with sickles in the wheat-fields. The grain was truly "golden grain," and there was never a foot of ground anywhere, whether the grain was standing or had fallen, without a flaming scarlet poppy. And every hill was green with trees and crowned with a castle or a tower.
We rode through miles and miles of vineyards, all arranged in pictures, for our benefit, as it seemed. The vines hung in festoons from long rows of mulberry trees. The trees were planted in rows that crossed one another, forming hollow squares, and the square spaces were filled with the scarlet poppies and the golden grain.