“I hope to-morrow will be just like to-day!” said his wife when he returned. “What shall we do with it?--our one real holiday, you know!” “I have a notion in my head,” he answered. “That little town Georgina spoke of, is not far from here--among the hills: shall we go and see it?” Chapter III. WITHOUT HIS PARENTS. The sun in England seems to shine because he cannot help it; the sun in Italy seems to shine because he means it, and wants to mean it. Thus he shone the next morning, including in his attentions a curious little couple, husband and wife, who, attended by a guide, and borne by animals which might be mules and might be donkeys, and were not lovely to look on except through sympathy with their ugliness, were slowly ascending a steep terraced and zigzagged road, with olive trees above and below them. They were on the south side of the hill, and the olives gave them none of the little shadow they have in their power, for the trees next the sun were always below the road. The man often wiped his red, innocent face, and looked not a little distressed; but the lady, although as stout as he, did not seem to suffer, perhaps because she was sheltered by a very large bonnet. After a silence of a good many minutes, she was the first to speak. “I can’t say but I’m disappointed in the olives, Thomas,” she remarked. “They ain’t much to keep the sun off you!” “They wouldn’t look bad along a brookside in Essex!” returned her husband. “Here they do seem a bit out of place!” “Well, but, poor things! how are they to help it--with only a trayful of earth under their feet! If you planted a priest on a terrace he would soon be as thin as they!” They had just passed a very stout priest, in a low broad hat, and cassock, and she laughed merrily at her small joke. They were an English country parson and his wife, abroad for the first time in their now middle-aged lives, and happy as children just out of school. Incapable of disliking anybody, there was no unkindness in Mrs. Porson’s laughter. “I don’t see,” she resumed, “how they ever can have a picnic in such a country!” “Why not?” “There’s no place to sit down!” “Here’s a whole hill-side!” “But so hard!” she answered. “There’s not an inch of turf or grass in any direction!” The pair--equally plump, and equally good-natured--laughed together. I need not give more of their talk. It was better than most talk, yet not worth recording. Their guide, perceiving that they knew no more of Italian than he did of English, had withdrawn to the rear, and stumped along behind them all the way, holding much converse with his donkeys, however, admonishing now this one, now that one, and seeming not a little hurt with their behaviour, to judge from the expostulations that accompanied his occasionally more potent arguments. Assuredly the speed they made was small; but it was a festa, and hot.