At the gate waited the open carriage, a city-square cabriolet, but clean and in repair, drawn by two strong little brown horses, with rosettes and feathers in their jingling bridles, ribbons in their whisking braided tails, and driven by a brown young man of twenty, with a feather, too, in his hat, which he wore aslant and crushed down over his right ear. To make the excursion pleasanter to himself, he was by permission taking along a companion of his own age, who occupied the low seat beside his elevated one, and in contrast with his vividness, the pride of life expressed by his cracking whip, the artistically singular sounds he made in his throat to encourage the horses, was a washed-out personality, good at most to do the jumping off and on, to readjust harness, to investigate the brake, or to offer alms from the lady in the carriage to the old man breaking stones in the roadside dust. They were off; they sped through the gate of the Holy Cross, the fresh young horses making excellent time. Out of the city, along the river, across it, past hamlets, past villas, past churches and _camposanti_, past vineyards and _poderi_ and peasants' dwellings.... It seemed to Aurora that never had there been such a day, so fresh and unstained and perfect, a day inspiring such gladness in being. The sense of that priceless boon, the freedom of a whole long day together, elated her with a joy that knew only one shadow, and that unremarked for the first half of it--the shortness of the longest earthly day. Now the horses slowed in their pace; the ascent had begun among the shady chestnut-trees. The driver's friend scrambled down and plodded alongside the horses; the driver himself descended and walked, cheering on his beasts with noises that nearly killed Aurora, she declared.