We had chosen Castel Gandolfo for our summer quarters and had spent two delightful months in the Villa Brazzà, situated on the lower edge of the town, which climbed up the gentle slope behind, and having for ourselves the open view of all the Campagna below us, before. The house did not look large from the road, but very little of it showed itself to the road at all. When one had passed under the arched “portone,” one found a great rambling residence with a long terraced wing stretching down into the garden, and in the garden itself pavilions, grottoes, terraces, all bowered in flowers and so artistically disposed that every one seemed isolated and only approached by long winding walks delightfully shady and green. Where the chief sitting-room opened towards the garden there was a small terrace, completely shaded from the morning sun, with a fountain so disposed that it fell all down one wall like a waterfall, and round it clambered and waved the wreaths of a hundred creepers, ivy and stephanotis and jessamine and maidenhair fern, all wet and blooming in the gentle moisture of its spray. To the left the wing, in which my own rooms were situated, ran far down, affording shade and coolness; a stairway led up to its roof, where vast beds of petunias gave out their sweet perfume and were visited every evening at sunset by humming-bird moths, who fed on the honey in the white and purple chalices till they could scarcely fly away. The house had been full of guests through July and August and the summer had been divinely bright and cool. Through it all I had looked, day after day, over towards the Sabine Hills, so remote and mysterious for all their nearness to Rome, and a great desire was upon me to penetrate into those blue fastnesses. They had been friends—at a distance—all my life, since I could remember anything, and probably before that, for the big eastern window of the room where I was born looked straight towards them, and doubtless their sun-smitten peaks were the first outside objects my eyes ever beheld. They are our Sibyls, in Rome. They reflect every change of sun and wind, and very early I learnt to tell the signs of the coming weather which they infallibly gave us.