Antonio, with his big key, unlocked the great gate, they filed through into the eucalyptus-shaded road, and in ten minutes they had left the quiet school behind them, and were down in the gay little town of Fossato. It was new and wonderful to Irene. The wide main street with its intense brilliant sunshine contrasting with the deep shade of the narrow side streets, the open shop-fronts with their displays of picturesque wares, the stalls of fruit and vegetables sold by quaint country vendors, the balconies full of flowers, the kindly, dark-eyed, smiling people, the pretty peasant children clattering about in heelless wooden shoes, the brightly painted carts and the horses decorated with flowers and feathers as if for a perpetual May Day, all made up a scene that was more like a portion of a play than a piece of real life, and made her almost able to imagine herself upon the stage of a theater. They had reached a great square, where leafless trees were covered with a beautiful purple blossom, something like mezereon. From a marble fountain bareheaded women, with exquisitely arranged dark tresses and bright handkerchiefs folded shawl-wise round their shoulders, were drawing water in brass pitchers, and chattering the soft southern dialect with the pretty tuneful Neapolitan voices that speak like singing and sing like opera. An equestrian statue of Garibaldi stood on a pedestal in the midst of a flowerbed of gay geraniums, and below, in the shadow, a military officer, with a gorgeous pale blue cloak draped over one shoulder, was talking to two Italian soldiers whose plumed hats were adorned with shining cocks' feathers. Miss Bickford, in the van of the Villa Camellia queue, strode on, taking no notice, beyond a firm shake of the head, of the various interruptions that met her path--the drivers who offered their carriages for hire, the smiling women who thrust forward baskets of oranges for sale, the beguiling children who held out little brown hands and begged for _soldi_ (halfpennies), and the post-card vendors who spread out sets of colored views of the neighborhood. It was a good thing that Miss Parr was at the rear of the procession to keep order, or the girls would have succumbed to some of these temptations and have broken rank, an unpardonable offense in the eyes of the school authorities, who wished to keep up the prestige of their establishment in the estimation of the town, and to emulate the convent school on the hill, whose pupils marched along the high street as demurely as young nuns. Turning out of the piazza they walked alongside a deep natural gorge which divided Fossato from the open country. This immense ravine was a fearsome place, with a sheer descent of many hundreds of feet; its jagged rocks were clothed with bushes and creepers, and clefts and the openings of caves could be seen amongst the greenery. The girls leaned on the low wall and shuddered as they gazed down the precipice.