the place, because it is a place to see after all.  So we came, and were so charmed by the exquisite beauty of the scenery, by the coolness of the climate and the absence of our countrymen, political troubles serving admirably our private requirements, that we made an offer for rooms on the spot, and returned to Florence for baby and the rest of our establishment without further delay.  Here we are, then; we have been here more than a fortnight.  We have taken an apartment for the season—­four months—­paying twelve pounds for the whole term, and hoping to be able to stay till the end of October.  The living is cheaper than even at Florence, so that there has been no extravagance in coming here.  In fact, Florence is scarcely tenable during the summer from the excessive heat by day and night, even if there were no particular motive for leaving it.  We have taken a sort of eagle’s nest in this place, the highest house of the highest of the three villages which are called the Bagni di Lucca, and which lie at the heart of a hundred mountains sung to continually by a rushing mountain stream.  The sound of the river and of the cicala is all the noise we hear.  Austrian drums and carriage wheels cannot vex us; God be thanked for it; the silence is full of joy and consolation.  I think my husband’s spirits are better already and his appetite improved.  Certainly little babe’s great cheeks are growing rosier and rosier.  He is out all day when the sun is not too strong, and Wilson will have it that he is prettier than the whole population of babies here.  He fixes his blue eyes on everybody and smiles universal benevolence, rather too indiscriminately it might be if it were not for Flush.  But certainly, on the whole he prefers Flush.  He pulls his ears and rides on him, and Flush, though his dignity does not approve of being used as a pony, only protests by turning his head round to kiss the little bare dimpled feet.  A merrier, sweeter-tempered child there can’t be than our baby, and people wonder at his being so forward at four months old and think there must be a mistake in his age.  He is so strong that when I put out two fingers and he has seized them in his fists he can draw himself up on his feet, but we discourage this forwardness, which is not desirable, say the learned.  Children of friends of mine at ten months and a year can’t do so much.  Is it not curious that my child should be remarkable for strength and fatness?  He has a beaming, thinking little face, too; oh, I wish you could see it.  Then my own strength has wonderfully improved, just as my medical friends prophesied; and it seems like a dream when I find myself able to climb the hills with Robert and help him to lose himself in the forests.  I have been growing stronger and stronger, and where it is to stop I can’t tell, really; I can do as much, or more, now than at any point of my life since I arrived at woman’s estate.  The air of this place seems to penetrate the heart and not