It did Guy good being with the
Forresters. He had always been very fond of his cousin, and she seemed
to suit him better than any one else now. She would sit by him for
hours, talking in her low, caressing tones, that soothed him like a cool
soft hand laid on a forehead fever-heated. Isabel was not afraid of him
now, but a great awe mingled with her pity.
It is curious, and tells well perhaps for our human nature; neither
pride of birth, nor complete success, nor profound wisdom, surrounds a
man with such reverence as the being possessed with a great sorrow. At
least no one can envy him; and so those who were his enemies once--like
the gallant Frenchman when he saw his adversary's empty sleeve--bring
their swords to the salute, and pass on.
At last we started for Rome, our party nearly filling two carriages.
There are only two ways of traveling: in your own carriage, with courier
and fourgon, like Russian or transatlantic noble, or with vetturino.
This last mode, which was ours, is scarcely less pleasant, if you are
not in a hurry. The charm of having, for a certain period, every care as
to ways and means off your mind, compensates for the six-miles-an-hour
pace. So we moved slowly southward through Verona, where one thinks more
of the Avon than the Adige--where, in tombs poised like Mohammed's
coffin, the mighty Scagliari sleep between earth and heaven, as if not
quite fit for either--where are the cypresses in the trim old garden,
soaring skyward till the eyes that follow grow dizzy, the trees that
were green and luxuriant years before the world was redeemed.
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