My second ideal family at Alatri lives along a side path which diverges off the main road to Ferentino. They are peasant proprietors, more wealthy and civilised than those others, but lacking their terrestrial pathos. They live among their own vines and fruit-trees on the hillside. The female parent, a massive matron, would certainly never send those winsome children into the Pontine Marshes, not for a single day, not for their weight in gold. The father is quite an uncommon creature. I look at him and ask myself; where have I seen that face before, so classic and sinewy and versatile? I have seen it on Greek vases, and among the sailors of the Cyclades and on the Bosphorus. It is a non-Latin face, with sparkling eyes, brown hair, rounded forehead and crisply curling beard; a legendary face. How came Odysseus to Alatri? Not far from this homestead where I have spent sundry pleasant hours there is a fountain gushing out of a hollow. In olden days it would have been hung with votive offerings to the nymphs, and rightly. One appreciates this nature-cult in a dry land. I have worshipped at many such shrines where the water bounds forth, a living joy, out of the rocky cleft--unlike those sluggish springs of the North that ooze regretfully upwards, as though ready to slink home again unless they were kicked from behind, and then trickle along, with barely perceptible movement, amid weeds and slime. Now this particular fountain (I think it is called acqua santa), while nowise remarkable as regards natural beauty, is renowned for curing every disease. It is not an ordinary rill; it has medicinal properties. Hither those two little demons, the younger children, conducted me all unsuspecting two days ago, desirous that I should taste the far-famed spring. "Try it," they said. I refused at first, since water of every kind has a knack of disagreeing with my weak digestion. As for them, they gulped down tumblers of it, being manifestly inured to what I afterwards discovered to be its catastrophic effects. "Look at us drinking it," they went on. "Ah, how good! Delicious! It is like Fiuggi, only better." "Am I an invalid, to drink Fiuggi water?" "It is not quite the same as Fiuggi. (True. I was soon wishing it had been.) How many men would pay dearly for your privilege! Never let it be said that you went away thirsting from this blessed spot." "I am not thirsty just now. Not at all thirsty, thank you." "We have seen you drink without being thirsty. Just one glass," they pleaded. "It will make you live a hundred years." "No. Let us talk about something else." "No? Then what shall we tell our mother? That we brought you here, and that you were afraid of a little mouthful of acqua santa? We thought you had more courage. We thought you could strangle a lion." "Something will happen," I said, as I drained that glass. Nothing happened for a few hours. Two days' rest is working wonders....