They climbed the steep and rocky lane between high walls, passed on the one side the house where Cardinal Baronius wrote his famous _Annals_, which had an interest too dry to fascinate the two young ladies; passed the wide iron gate of a villa to left, and another to right, giving only a glance at the paradises within; passed the large painting of the Madonna embowered in trees at the foot of the Cappucini Avenue; passed under the stone portal, and the rod of verdant shadow almost as solid, that formed the entrance to Villa Tuscolana, ravished now and then by glimpses of the magnificent distance; on into the lovely wood-road, the ancient _Via Tusculana_; and presently there they were at last in the birthplace of Cato, the air-hung city that broke the pride of Rome, and that, conquered at last, died in its defeat, and remained for ever a ruin. Not a word was spoken when they reached the summit, and stood gazing on what is, probably, the most magnificent view in the world. Only after a while, when the three new-comers began to move and come out of their first trance of admiration, the Signora named some of the chief points in the landscape and in the ruins. The old historical scenes started up, the old marvellous stories rushed back to their memories, the mountains crowded up as witnesses, and the towns, with all their teeming life and countless voices of the present hushed by distance, became voluble with voices and startling with life of the past. After a while they seated themselves in the shade of a tree, facing the west, and silently thought, or dreamed, or merely looked, as their mood might be. Their glances shot across the bosky heights that climbed to their feet, and across the wide Campagna, to where Rome lay like a heap of lilies thrown on a green carpet, and the glittering sickle of the distant sea curved round the world. Day deepened about them in waves. They could almost feel each wave flow over them as the sun mounted, touching degree after degree of the burning blue, as a hand touches octaves up an organ. The birds sang less, and the cicali more, and the plants sighed forth all their perfume. Isabel slipped off her shoes, and set her white-stockinged feet on a tiny laurel-bush, that bent kindly under them without breaking, making a soft and fragrant cushion. All took off their hats, and drank in the faint wind that was fresh, even at noon.