Going up then to the station-yard, they found it quite deserted, except for the carriage that had been sent for them, and another drawn by a tandem of beautiful white horses, in whose ears their owner, one of the young princes living near the town, was fastening the roses he had just gathered below. The creatures seemed as vain of themselves as he evidently was proud of them, and held their heads quite still to be adorned, tossing their tails instead, which had been cut short, and tied round with a gay scarlet band. Every traveller knows that Frascati is built up the sides of the Tusculan hills, looking toward Rome, the railway station on a level with the Campagna, the town rising above with its countless street-stairs, and, still above, the magnificent villas over which look the ruins of ancient Tusculum. On one of the lower streets of the town, in Palazzo Simonetti, lived a friend of the Signora, and there rooms had been provided for the family, and every preparation made for their comfort. They found a second breakfast awaiting them, laid out in a room looking up to one of the loveliest nooks in the world――the little _piazza_ of the _duomo vecchio_, with its great arched doorway, and exquisite fountain overshadowed by a weeping willow. If it had been a common meal, they would have declined it; but it was a little feast for the eyes rather: a dish of long, slim strawberries from Nemi, where strawberries grow every month in the year by the shores of the beautiful lake, in a soil that has not yet forgotten that it once throbbed with volcanic fires; tiny rolls, ring-shaped and not much too large for a finger-ring, and golden shells of butter; all these laid on fresh vine-leaves and surrounded by pomegranate blossoms that shone like fire in the shaded room. The coffee-cups were after-dinner cups, and so small that no one need decline on the score of having already taken coffee; and there was no sign of cream, only a few lumps of sugar, white and shining as snow-crust. “It is frugal, dainty, and irresistible,” Mr. Vane said. “Let us accept by all means.” They were going up to Tusculum, and, as the day was advancing, set off after a few minutes, going on foot. They had preferred that way, being good walkers, and having, moreover, a unanimous disinclination to see themselves on donkeys. “A gentleman on a donkey is less a gentleman than the donkey,” Mr. Vane said. “I would walk a hundred miles sooner than ride one mile on a beast which has such short legs and such long ears. The atmosphere of the ridiculous which they carry with them is of a circumference to include the tallest sort of man. Besides, they have an uncomfortable way of sitting down suddenly, if they only feel a fly, and that hurts the self-love of the rider, if it doesn’t break his bones.”