broke a chain with a pretty little tinkling noise, and some of the sheep
tripped up on it, they did nothing but smile and merely mention "ba-a"
in an indifferent, absent-minded way.

"If you only _knew_ how much nicer you are with mint sauce!" Beechy
taunted them, as we swept round a corner and were in the labyrinth of
the fortress, which was, our men told us, part of the once famous
quadrilateral that made trouble for Italy in '48.

"There's something pathetic about old, obsolete forts as grand as
Peschiera," Mr. Barrymore said to me. "So much thought and money spent,
the best military science of the day employed to make a stronghold as
feeble against modern arms as a fort of cards. Such a fortress seems
like an aged warrior, past his fighting days, or an old hunting dog, as
keen on the chase as ever, poor fellow, but too old to move from before
the fire, where he can only lie and dream of past triumphs."

"I was thinking almost exactly the same!" I exclaimed, and I liked Mr.
Barrymore all the better; for it draws you nearer to a person when you
find that your thoughts resemble each other in shape and colour. Oddly
enough, it's often so with Mr. Barrymore and me; which is the reason
it's so agreeable to have the place beside him when he drives.

No more than half a dozen miles from Peschiera we saw the Tower of San
Martino, raised on the great battlefield of Solferino. By this time we
had left the lake behind; but we had exchanged the low, amethyst
mountains for tall white ones, glorious pinnacles of snow which were the
higher Austrian Alps. Everything was impressive on this road to Verona,
even the farmhouses, of an entirely different character from those of
the "yesterday country;" and then, at last, we came in sight of Verona
herself, lying low within a charmed circle of protecting hills, on which
castles and white villas looked down from among cypresses and rose-pink
almond trees.

I was glad that the gateway by which we entered Verona was the finest
through which we had passed, for though Mr. Barrymore called the town
"an inn for the great travellers of history," it was more for me. It was
the home of romance; for was it not Juliet's home and Romeo's?

That gateway, and the splendid old crenellated bridge of dark red brick
(toning deliciously with the clear, beryl-green of the swift-rushing
Adda) made a noble, preface for the city. And then, each old, old street
into which we turned was a new joy. What lesson