It was a sultry autumnal day--one of those days of early autumn when the summer seems to return and make a fierce struggle to resume its reign, when the leaves are yet green, or just tinted with the yellow hue of decay, when the grape is still ruddy on the bough, and the fig looks purple amongst its broad green leaves. The air had seemed languid and loaded all the day, as if a sirocco had been blowing, though the wind was in the west, and a hazy whiteness spread over the wide plains through which wander the Po, the Mincio, and the Adige. The silver gray cattle strayed lazily through the fields, sometimes lifting their heads, and bellowing as if for fresh cool air, sometimes plunging amongst the sedges, or actually swimming in the streams. Not a bird was seen winging its way through the air, the very beccaficos were still amongst the vines, and the horses of a large party of travellers who were approaching the banks of the Po, hung their heads, and wearily wended on, oppressed more by the languid heat of the day than by the length of the way they had travelled. The travellers themselves, however, seemed gay and full of high spirits: the three gentlemen who rode in front jesting lightly with each other, though one was an elderly man of a staid, though somewhat feeble looking countenance: and the servants behind chattering in various languages with no very reverent lowness of tone. "Do you remember, Hume," said one of the former, as they rode on, "our first journey by night through these plains?" "Yes," replied the other, "and your plunging your horse into the Mincio, vowing we had all got off the high road." "Because we had nothing but fire-flies to light us," replied Gowrie, "and Mr. Rhind took the first we saw for falling stars." "Though there were no stars in the sky to fall," cried Hume; "or if they had fallen, they would have been caught in the thick blanket of cloud, and tossed up again." "Well, my young friend," said meek Mr. Rhind, "they were the first I ever saw, you know, and every man may make a mistake." "I wonder you did not take them for the burning bush," said Hume, a little irreverently; "for, my dear Rhind, you had had the Old Testament in your mouth from the moment we left Mantua, and you had paid our bill to the Moabitish woman who cheated us so fearfully. You called her by every gentile name you could muster, simply because she would have twenty _scudi_ more than her due." "Well, I own I loved her not," replied Mr. Rhind. "But she did not want you to love her!" retorted Hume; "she wanted Gowrie to love her, and he would not; so she charged the twenty scudi for the disappointment; and all she wanted _with you_ was to pay the money." "Which I certainly would not have done, if I could have helped it," replied Mr. Rhind.