All this we witnessed from an advantageotis point
at the roadside which we had taken up at his first show of reluctance;
and at last the driver suggested that we should leave it and go on to
the Villa Falconieri on foot. On our part, we suggested that he should
attempt some other villa which would not involve an objectionable climb.
He then proposed the Villa Mandragone, and the horse seemed to agree
with us. As we drove again through the clean, cold, stony streets, with
the rounded doorways for the wine-casks, we fancied something clearly
ironical in the general interest renewed by our return. But we tried to
look as if we had merely done the Villa Falconieri with unexampled
rapidity, and pushed on to the Villa Mandragone, where, under the roof
of interlacing ilex toughs, our horse ought to have been tempted on in a
luxurious unconsciousness of anything like an incline. But he was
apparently an animal which would have felt the difference between two
rose-leaves and one in a flowery path, and just when we were thinking
what a delightful time we were having, and beginning to feel a gentle
question as to who the pathetic little cripple halting toward us with a
color-box and a camp-stool might be, and whether she painted as well as
a kind heart could wish, our horse stopped with the suddenness which we
knew to be definite.
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