bold rocky point of Porto Fino; to the right
extended westward a grand line of picturesque coast, including the
headlands of Capo di Noli and Capo delle Mele; and near at hand lay the
harbor of Genoa, with its shipping, its amphitheatre of palaces,
surmounted by the high ground above, and crowned by the fortressed
summits beyond.

We were roused from the absorbing admiration which this majestic sea and
land view had excited, by one of the four asking whether there were any
access to the _palazzo_ from this terrace. Whereupon the brothers showed
us a winding turret staircase, which led by a subterranean passage into
one of the lower vaulted rooms. Nothing more like a place in a wonderful
story-book ever met us in real life; and while we were lost in a dream
of romantic imaginings, one of the brothers was engaged in giving a
prosaic relation of how the old _palazzo_ had come into their family by
a lawsuit, which terminated in their favor, and left them possessors of
this unexpected property. During the narrative a brood of adolescent
chickens had come near to where we stood listening on the green plot,
and eyed us with expectant looks, as if accustomed to be fed or noticed.
The elder brother indulged the foremost among the poultry group--a white
bantam cock of courageous character--by giving him his foot to assault.
Valiantly the little fellow flew at, and spurred, and pecked the boot
and trousers; again and again he returned to the charge, while the
blue-gray eyes beamed smilingly down from beneath the steeple-crowned
hat, as the old man humored the bird's pugnacious spirit.

Presently a shy little girl of some ten or twelve years came peering out
at the strangers from beneath a row of evergreen oaks that ornamented
the back of the dwelling-house overlooking the terrace. There she stood
at the foot of the ilexes, shading her eyes with one hand, (for the sun
coyly gleamed through the rain-clouds at that moment,) while the other
was employed in restraining the lumbering fondness of two large
bull-dogs, that gambolled heavily round her. She was introduced to us as
the daughter of the younger of the two brothers; who proved after all to
be no bachelor, but a widower. One ponderous brindled brute poked his
black muzzle against the child with such a weight of affection that we
expected to see her overturned on the sward; but she seemed to have
complete control over her canine favorites, and to live with them and a
large macaw