The two mothers became great friends, notwithstanding their respective ignorance of each other’s language, but it was touching to see them sitting side by side in the garden, teaching each other Italian and English names for the different flowers, which the _mama_ brought in handfuls and deposited on the lap of the “cara e buona miladi.” The old gardener, with gentle manners and calm exterior, who rented the garden, but would never let us pay a _soldo_ for the beautiful nosegays he showered on us, was a real Italian at heart. On one occasion, the gardener of a neighbouring villa, Salviati, had brought a large present of choice flowers to my mother, from our friend Mrs Vansittart. This circumstance so raised the ire of the rival functionary at Careggi, that it was with great difficulty that our English servant interposed to appease the _babbo_, for, as he told me afterwards, he saw the moment when knives were likely to be drawn. The porter, old Pietro, had been, as I said before, a soldier, and was a great character in his way. He would sometimes pace the terrace with me, and not only discuss, but quote long extracts from Dante. Like many other scholars and students of the divine poet, he found the greatest delight in the story of Francesca di Rimini, and he delivered it as his emphatic opinion that her punishment was immeasurably too severe for her fault. I think I should have to wait some time before an English hall-porter, or domestic servant of any class, would be likely to discuss with me the characteristics of one of Shakespeare’s heroines. This reminds me of an incident related by my dear friend, Lady Marian Alford. She was coming out of the Cathedral at Siena, and talking of the lines in Dante which commemorate the sad fate of “La Pia.” She had got as far as “Siena mi fè,” when she paused and hesitated, being unable to remember the rest of the line, when a little street Arab, or _gamin_, came to her assistance and completed the sentence, “disfeci mi Maremma,” to the satisfaction of both. But we must not wander from Careggi and the golden summer we passed there. The windows were scrupulously closed during the intense heat of the day, but between the hours of four and five they were flung wide open to admit the refreshing air, and then we would sit in the garden, or walk, or drive, interchanging visits, and offering or accepting invitations from the neighbouring villas, or sometimes from dwellers in the city.