VERONICA,
BY THE AUTHOR OF "AUNT MARGARET'S TROUBLE."
IN FIVE BOOKS.

BOOK III.
CHAPTER I. THE ROAD THAT LED NOWHITHER.

VERY near to Florence is the valley of
the Ema.

The Ema is a small stream which strikingly
contradicts the proverb, "As you
make your bed, so you must lie on it,"
the bed the Ema has formed for itself
being a valley a mile or so broad in some
places, reckoning from hill to hill; and
the little river trickling through it now-a-days,
in a disproportionately small channel,
which may be (and is in more than one
part of its course) spanned by a bridge of
a single small arch. The ridge of hills
dividing the valley of the Ema from that
of the Arno is well known by sight to most
of the many strangers who go to Florence.
Few casual visitors, however, cross the
ridge. The landscape seen from its
summit is peculiarly Tuscan, and to the
unaccustomed eye there is something drear
and melancholy mingling with its beauty.
After a time that impression is much
softened. The peculiar delicacy of colouring;
the long vistas of hills that fold like
clouds one over the other, and present
nearly as much variety of outline as the
clouds themselves; the countless towers,
villas, and churches that lie scattered over
the scene, and peep forth from amid the
hoary olive-trees; combine to charm the
sight.

We come to learn the loveliness as we
learn the expression of a face whose
stranger aspect was so different from its
known and familiar one, that the recollection
of our first impression startles us.

The great enchantment of this Tuscan
landscape lies in the atmosphere through
which it is viewed. The wonderful lights
and shades, the exquisite tints, the limpid
clearness of the skies, are inestimable in
their effect upon the scenery. In a winter
afternoon at sunset, the bare, distant
Appenines are touched with such ethereal
hues—such lilacs, silvery greys, blues, and
rose-colours—that they look like
mother-of-pearl mountains in some fairy story.
Not Hope herself can more delusively
beautify the barren distance than does this
southern air.

Then, as the sun goes down, and the
brief twilight deepens, there grows a solemn
purple on the hills: a colour that seems, in
its intense bloomy depth, to fold around
them like a cloud-garment. It is not that
the hills grow purple, but that the great
purple descends and wraps itself about the
hills. Or, in the early summer days, what
a fathomless ocean of dazzling blue is it that
the swallows sail across! Bright, rapid,
gladsome little skiffs upon that silent sea!
Every projecting stone in the cottages is
precious, casting as it does an island of
black shadow on the glare of wall or road.
The springing wheat is almost too
emerald-bright to be gazed upon. Beside the
burnt brown tower on the hill, stand the
strong cypresses, writing dark characters
against the shimmering sky—hieroglyphics
which different eyes so differently interpret,
and which to some remain dumb and
unread for ever.

It is June. Through the vale of Ema
ripples the shrunken river among the
parched, thirsty sand. Here and there comes
a stretch that seems to have absorbed the
little stream. You can cross it dry-shod.
But, lo! some furlongs off, it purls and
gurgles once more amid the reeds. The