After a picnic repast, they ascended Monte Cavo, and looked down on the deep basins of the lakes, once blazing with volcanic fire, now full of water blue as the sky it reflected; like human souls in which the passions have burned out, and left them calm recipients of those divine truths in which the heavens are mirrored.  As Mrs. Delano pointed out various features in the magnificent panorama around them, she began to tell Flora of scenes in the Aeneid with which they were intimately connected.  The young girl, who was serious for the moment, dropped on the grass to listen, with elbows on her friend’s lap, and her upturned face supported by her hands.  But the lecture was too grave for her mercurial spirit; and she soon sprang up, exclaiming:  “O Mamita Lila, all those people were dead and buried so long ago!  I don’t believe the princess that Aeneas was fighting about was half as handsome as that dancing Contadina from Frascati, with a scarlet bodice and a floating veil fastened among her black braids with a silver arrow.  How her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks glowed!  And the Contadino who was dancing with her, with those long streamers of red ribbon flying round his peaked hat, he looked almost as handsome as she did.  How I wish I could see them dance the saltarello again!  O Mamita Lila, as soon as we get back to Rome, do buy a tambourine.”  Inspired by the remembrance, she straightway began to hum the monotonous tune of that grasshopper dance, imitating the hopping steps and the quick jerks of the arms, marking the time with ever-increasing rapidity on her left hand, as if it were a tambourine.  She was so aglow with the exercise, and so graceful in her swift motions, that Mrs. Delano watched her with admiring smiles.  But when the extempore entertainment came to a close, she thought to herself:  “It is a hopeless undertaking to educate her after the New England pattern.  One might as well try to plough with a butterfly, as to teach her ancient history.”

When they had wandered about a little while longer, happy as souls newly arrived in the Elysian Fields, Mrs. Delano said:  “My child, you have already gathered mosses enough to fill the carriage, and it is time for us to return.  You know twilight passes into darkness very quickly here.”

“Just let me gather this piece of golden lichen,” pleaded she.  “It will look so pretty among the green moss, in the cross I am going to make you for Christmas.”

When all her multifarious gleanings were gathered up, they lingered a little to drink in the beauty of the scene before them.  In the distance was the Eternal City, girdled by hills that stood out with wonderful distinctness in the luminous atmosphere of that brilliant day, which threw a golden veil over all its churches, statues, and ruins.  Before they had gone far on their homeward ride, all things passed through magical changes.  The hills were seen in vapory visions, shifting their hues with opaline glances; and over the green, billowy surface of the