PIORA. (FROM CHAPTER VI. OF ALPS AND SANCTUARIES.) {275} An excursion which may be very well made from Faido is to the Val Piora, which I have already more than once mentioned. There is a large hotel here which has been opened some years, but has not hitherto proved the success which it was hoped it would be. I have stayed there two or three times and found it very comfortable; doubtless, now that Signer Lombardi of the Hotel Prosa has taken it, it will become a more popular place of resort. I took a trap from Faido to Ambri, and thence walked over to Quinto; here the path begins to ascend, and after an hour Ronco is reached. There is a house at Ronco where refreshments and excellent Faido beer can be had. The old lady who keeps the house would make a perfect Fate; I saw her sitting at her window spinning, and looking down over the Ticino valley as though it were the world and she were spinning its destiny. She had a somewhat stern expression, thin lips, iron-grey eyes, and an aquiline nose; her scanty locks straggled from under the handkerchief which she wore round her head. Her employment and the wistful far-away look she cast upon the expanse below made a very fine _ensemble_. "She would have afforded," as Sir Walter Scott says, "a study for a Rembrandt, had that celebrated painter existed at the period," {276} but she must have been a smart-looking, handsome girl once. She brightened up in conversation. I talked about Piora, which I already knew, and the _Lago Tom_, the highest of the three lakes. She said she knew the _Lago Tom_. I said laughingly, "Oh, I have no doubt you do. We've had many a good day at the _Lago Tom_, I know." She looked down at once.