They lounged over the parapets of the carved bridges, with their elbows set among roses, to look down into the little ravines where small runnels flowed among the soft pink-purple clouds of Judas-trees. They were tempted into allées bordered their whole length with the white fountains of blossoming spireas, or hedged on both sides by pink hermosas. They strolled past clumps of feathery bamboos to gaze along the shadowy vistas of four broad avenues meeting at a bright circle where a sculptured fountain tossed its waters in the sun. They lingered in paths where tea-roses were garlanded from tree to tree, or by walls curtained by Maréchale Niels. They inspected the nurseries and admired the greenhouse. They came with delight upon a double ring of giant cypresses lifting dark spires into the dazzling blue of the sky, and sat to rest happily upon a great curved marble seat whose back had lettered upon it a reminder to the “Shadowed Soul” that wisdom comes only in shade and peace. “E La Sagezza Vieni Solo Nel’ Ombra E Pace.” And finally they mounted the little tiled and columned belvedere hanging at the corner of the garden’s lofty wall to gaze upon a view unrivalled of this most beautifully placed city. Palermo lay stretched before them in its plain of the Conca d’Oro—the golden shell. Round it as a garland 234rose a semicircle of vapoury mountains like rosy-purple clouds, bending on beyond the plain on either side to clasp a bay of dazzling violet whose waters glowed at the city’s feet; the city itself warmly cream-tinted and roofed with dull red tiles. A city towered, columned, arched; with here the ruddy bubbles of San Giovanni degli Eremiti’s domes, there the tall spires and fretted crest of the Cathedral; and flowing through it all, or resting here and there in pools, the green of orange groves, the flushing mist of Judas-trees, the long stream of verdant parks and gardens. “Not only is this the loveliest city in the whole world,” said Jane, “but this is also the sweetest of all gardens, and a curious thing is that we seem to have it quite to ourselves. You’d suppose all Palermo would want to come here for at least half of every day, but not a soul have we met except those two dear, queer old gardeners sitting on the tank’s edge playing a game with orange seeds.” “Well, if the Palermians haven’t intelligence enough to use such a garden, we have,” announced Peripatetica. “And we will come here every day.” Which they did for a while; bringing their fountain pens to write letters in the bosco, or resting after sight-seeing in the cool shade of the cypress ring. And it might have served them to the end as their intimate joy had it not been for Peripatetica’s insane passion for gardening. “Sicily’s Picture-book, The Painted Cart”