Two Pretty
Girls, Smartly Dressed In Hats And Gowns Exactly Alike, And Doubtless
Sisters, If Not Twins, Passed Down To The Same Level.
One was with a
handsome young officer, and walked staidly beside him, as if content
with her quality of captive or captor.
The other was with a civilian, of
whom she was apparently not sure. Suddenly she ran away from him to the
verge of the next fall of steps, possibly to show him how charmingly she
was dressed, possibly to tempt him by her grace in flight to follow her
madly. But he followed sanely and slowly, and she waited for him to come
up, in a capricious quiet, as if she had not done anything or meant
anything. That was all; but I am not hard to suit; and it was richly
enough for me.
Her little comedy came to its denouement just under the shoulder of the
rose-roofed terrace jutting from a lowish, plainish house on the left,
beyond certain palms and eucalyptus-trees. It is one of the most sacred
shrines in Rome, for it was in this house that the "young English poet
whose name was writ in water" died to deathless fame three or fourscore
years ago. It is the Keats house, which when he lived in it was the
house of Severn the painter, his host and friend. I had visited it for
the kind sake of the one and the dear sake of the others when I first
visited Rome in 1864; and it was one of the earliest stations of my
second pilgrimage.
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