In the safe hold
of united Italy she now sits by her Arno and draws long, deep breaths,
which you may almost hear as you pass; and I hope the prospect of
increasing prosperity will not tempt her to work too hard. It does not
look as if it would.
We were getting a little anxious, but not very anxious, for that one
cannot be in Pisa, about our train back to Leghorn; though we did not
wish to go, we did not wish to be left; but our driver reassured us, and
would not let us shirk the duty of seeing the house where Galileo was
born. We found it in a long street on the thither side of the river, and
in such a poor quarter that our driver could himself afford to live only
a few doors from it. As if they had expected him to pass about this
time, his wife and his five children were sitting at his door and
playing before it. He proudly pointed them out with his whip, and one of
the little ones followed on foot far enough to levy tribute. They were
sufficiently comely children, but blond, whereas the boy on the box was
both black-eyed and black-haired.
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