pretty sketch.) "But who are those ladies above?"

"I suppose they had wives and sisters, did they not?" said Verney.

"I suppose they did--of _some_ sort," said Janet, disparagingly.

But Verney now produced a second sketch; "another study of the same
subject," he called it. This was a picture of the same number of men,
clad in clumsy armor, with rough, coarse faces, attacking a pass and
compelling two miserable frightened peasants with loaded mules to yield
up what they had, while, from a rude tower above, like our mediaeval T.
G., two or three swarthy women with children were watching the scene.
The wrappings of the two sketches being now removed, we saw that one was
labelled, "The Lascaris--her Idea of them;" and the other, "The
Lascaris--as they were."

We all laughed. But I think Janet was not quite pleased. After the next
change Verney found himself, by some mysterious chance, left to occupy
the seat beside Miss Elaine, while Baker had his former place.

The Nervia, a clear rapid little snow-formed river, ran briskly down
over its pebbles towards the sea. Our road followed the western bank,
and before long brought us to Campo Rosso, a little village with a
picturesque belfry, a church whose facade was decorated with old
frescos, two marble sirens spouting water, and numberless "bits" in the
way of vistas through narrow arched passages and crooked streets, which
are the delight of artists. But Campo Rosso was not our destination, and
entering the carriage again, we went onward through an olive wood whose
broad terraces extended above, below, and on all sides as far as eye
could reach. When we had stopped wondering over its endlessness, and had
grown accustomed to the gray light, suddenly we came out under the open
sky again, with Dolce Acqua before us, its castle above, its church
tower below, and, far beyond, our first view of snow-capped peaks rising
high and silvery against the deep blue sky. Inness and Baker threw up
their hats and saluted the snow with an American hurrah. "What with
those white peaks and this Italian sky, I feel like the Merry Swiss Boy
and the Marble Faun rolled into one," said Baker.

We drove up to the Locanda Desiderio, or "Desired Inn," as Inness
translated it. It was now noon, and in the brick-floored apartment below
a number of peasants were eating sour bread and drinking wine. But the
host, a handsome young Italian, hastened to show us an upper chamber,
where, with the warm suns