"Oh, he was a charming poet, born in Asti in the middle of the eighteenth century," said Maida. "I've read a lot about him, at--at home. He had one of the prettiest love stories in history. It is like an Anthony Hope romance. I thought, perhaps, Sir Ralph wanted us to see the house where he lived." "I'm ashamed to say it was the Asti Spumante I was thinking of," confessed Sir Ralph. "It's a wine for children, but it might amuse you all to taste it on its native heath; and you could drink the health of Vittorio Alfieri--in a better world." Mamma thought that proceeding rather too Popish for a professed Presbyterian; nevertheless, we decided to have the wine. We approached Asti by way of a massive gateway, which formed a part of the ancient fortifications of the city; and though we had seen several others rather like it since coming into Piedmont and Lombardy, it struck me with a sort of awe that I would have been ashamed to put into words, except on paper, for fear somebody might laugh. I suppose it's because I come from a country where we think houses aged at fifty, and antique at a hundred; but these old fortified towns and ruined castles frowning down from rocky heights give me the kind of eerie thrill one might have if one had just died and was being introduced to scenery and society on the fixed stars or planets. At home it had always seemed so useless to know which was which, Guelfs or Ghibellines, when I was studying history, that I made no effort to fix them in my mind; but now, when I caught snatches of talk between Maida and the Chauffeulier, to whom the Guelfs and Ghibellines are still apparently as real as Republicans and Democrats were to Papa, I wished that I knew a little more about them. But how could I tell in those days that I would ever be darting about in a country where George Washington and Abraham Lincoln would seem more unreal than the Swabian Emperors, the Marquesses of Montferrat, and the Princes of Savoie ever did to me in Denver? I envied Maida when I heard her say that the House of Savoie had been like Goethe's star, "unhasting and unresting" in its absorption of other principalities, marquisates, counties, duchies, and provinces, which it had matched into one great mosaic, at last, making the kingdom of Italy. Mr. Barrymore loves Italy so much that he likes her for knowing these things, and I think I shall steal that book she bought at Nice, and is always reading--Hallam's "Middle Ages."