What the Senator called our attention to as we drove to the hotel was the conspicuous part in municipal politics played by that little old brown river Arno.  In most places the riparian feature of the landscape is not insisted on—­you have usually to go to the suburbs to find it, but in Pisa it is a sort of main street, with the town sitting comfortably and equally on each side of it looking on.  Momma and I both liked the idea of a river in town scenery, and thought it might be copied with advantage in America, it afforded such a good excuse for bridges.  Pisa’s three arched stone ones made a reason for settling there in themselves in our opinion.  The Senator, however, was against it on conservancy grounds, and asked us what we thought of the population of Pisa.  And we had to admit that for the size of the houses there weren’t very many people about.  The Lungarno was almost empty except for desolate cabmen, and they were just as eager and hospitable to us and our trunks as they had been in Genoa.

In the Piazza del Duomo we expected the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, the Baptistry, and the Campo Santo.  We did not expect Mrs. Portheris; at least, neither of my parents did—­I knew enough about Dicky Dod not to be surprised at any combination he might effect.  There they all were in the middle of the square bit of meadow, apparently waiting for us, but really, I have no doubt, getting an impression of the architecture as a whole.  I could tell from Mrs. Portheris’s attitude that she had acknowledged herself to be gratified.  Strange to relate, her gratification did not disappear when she saw that these mediaeval circumstances would inconsistently compel her to recognise very modern American connections.  She approached us quite blandly, and I saw at once that Dicky Dod had been telling her that poppa’s chances for the Presidency were considered certain, that the Spanish Infanta had stayed with us while she was in Chicago at the Exhibition, and that we fed her from gold plate.  It was all in Mrs. Portheris’s manner.

“Another unexpected meeting!” she exclaimed.  “My dear Mrs. Wick, you are looking worn out!  Try my sal volatile—­I insist!” and in the general greeting momma was seen to back violently away from a long silver bottle in every direction.  Poppa had to interfere.  “If it’s all the same to you, Aunt Caroline,” he said, “Mrs. Wick is quite as usual, though I think the Middle Agedness of this country is a little trying for her at this time of year.  She’s just a little upset this morning by seeing the cook plucking a rooster down in the backyard before he’d killed it.  The rooster was in great affliction, you see, and the way he crowed got on momma’s nerves.  She’s been telling us about it ever since.  But we hope it will pass off.”

Mrs. Portheris expanded into that inevitable British story of the officer who reported of certain tribes that they had no manners and their customs were abominable, and I, at a mute invitation from Dicky, stepped aside to get the angle of the Tower from a better point of view.