to do?" asked my anxious companion. "Why, if it comes to
the worst, walk down to the station and take the night-train back." He
walked away whistling, and I composed myself to a visage of stone
and turned my eyes to the sculptures once more. Suddenly the driver
stopped short: there was a minute's pause, and then I heard a voice
in the softest accents asking for something to buy a drink. I turned
round--beside me stood the driver hat in hand: "Yes, the signora is
right, quite right: I go, but she will give me something to get a
drink?" I nearly laughed, but, biting my lips, I said firmly, "A
drink? Yes, if it be poison." The effect was astounding: the man
uttered an ejaculation, crossed himself, mounted his box and drove
off; the beggars shrank away, stood aloof and exchanged awestruck
whispers; only a few liquid-eyed little ragamuffins continued to turn
somersets and stand on their heads undismayed.

Half an hour elapsed: the sun was beginning to descend, when the sound
of wheels was again heard, and a light wagon with four places and a
brisk little horse came rattling down the street. A pleasant-looking
fellow jumped down, took off his hat and said he had come to drive
us to Perugia. We jumped up joyfully, but I asked the price. "Fifty
francs"--a sum about equivalent to fifty dollars in those regions. I
smiled and shook my head: he eagerly assured me that this included
his _buon mano_ and the cost of the oxen which we should be obliged
to hire to drag us up some of the hills. I shook my head again: he
shrugged and turned as if to go. My unhappy fellow-traveler started
forward: "Give him whatever he asks and let us get away." I sat down
again on the steps, saying in Italian, as if in soliloquy, that
we should have to go by the train, after all. Then the new-comer
cheerfully came back: "Well, signora, whatever you please to give."
I named half his price--an exorbitant sum, as I well knew--and in
a moment more we were skimming along over the hard, smooth
mountain-roads: we heard no more of those mythical beasts the oxen,
and in two hours were safe in Perugia.

THE PARADOX.

I wish that the day were over,
The week, the month and the year;
Yet life is not such a burden
That I wish the end were near.

And my birthdays come so swiftly
That I meet them grudgingly:
Would it be so were I longing
For the life that is to be?

Nay: the soul, though ever reaching
For that which is out