ly on a visit to an aunt
in the country when she first met Romeo, for fancy a girl in her senses
yelling down from that balcony up at the top of a tall house to _any_
lover, let alone a secret one? Besides, there wouldn't have been enough
rope in Verona to make the ladder for Romeo to climb up."

After this speech, I decided that, fond as I really am of her, I could
_not_ visit Juliet's tomb in Beechy's society. I gave no hint of my
intentions, but after an exquisite hour (which nobody could spoil) in
that most adorable of churches, San Zenone, and another in Sant'
Anastasia, I slipped away while Beechy and Sir Ralph were picking out
the details of St. Peter's life on the panels of a marvellous pilaster.

We had had a cab by the hour; and when they should discover my absence,
they would take it for granted that I had got tired and gone home. They
would then proceed to carry out their programme of sight-seeing very
happily without me, for Beechy amuses Sir Ralph immensely, child as she
is, and she makes no secret of taking pleasure in his society. She
teases him, and he likes it; he draws her out, and her wit brightens in
the process.

I hurried off when their backs were turned. Not far away I found a
prowling cab, and told the man to drive me to Juliet's tomb. He stared,
as if in surprise, for I suppose girls of our class don't go about much
alone in Italian towns; but he condescended to accept me as a fare.
However, to show his disapproval maybe, he rattled me through streets
old and beautiful, ugly and modern (why should most modern things be
ugly, even in Italy?) at a tremendous pace. At last he stopped before a
high, blank wall, in a most dismal region, apparently the outskirts of
the town. I would hardly believe that he had brought me to the right
place, but he reassured me. In the distance another cab was approaching,
probably on the same errand. I rang a bell, and a gate was opened by a
nice-looking woman, who knew well what I wanted without my telling, and
she spoke so clearly that I was able to understand much of what she
said. Instead of feeling that the romance of visiting Juliet's
burial-place was destroyed by traversing the great open square of the
communal stables, where an annual horse show is held, I was conscious of
a strange charm in the unsuitable surroundings. It was like coming upon
a beautiful white pearl in a battered old oyster-shell, to pass through
this narrow gateway at the far end of a dust