_Florence,
June._
Yes, A. D. dear, I, too, am thinking of the balcony and the sunset
and everything connected with your visit here. I have ever so many
enchanting memories of Florence to carry away in my brain, so that in
time to come, they can be taken from out their gray cells in quiet
moments when I am by myself. Especially that stroll through the
Cascine gardens and into the park, where, in its wild hidden places,
we sat and talked,--the warm sunshine streaming through the trees and
the flowers springing up in the grass under our feet. And how
magnificent the Boboli gardens were, their arcades and statues peeping
from the hedges, and the long walk with its splendid vista looking out
beyond the Palace. Then our excursion to Fiesole, breakfast at the
little _osteria_, and shall you ever forget how we climbed up to the
monastery and walked bravely in, where women had no business, and when
the monks saw _me_, how they scuttled away, hiding their faces in
their sleeves!
But, by jinks, this sounds terribly like sentimentalizing! I will stop
at once and be prim and proper.
So you have forgotten what I look like? And have to go to Rossi to
get a photograph! Is it true, I wonder?--“_L’amour fait passer le
temps; le temps fait passer l’amour!_” How I wish I could have looked
in at the Spanish Embassy--to me, the Palazzo and the garden are just
bits out of the fairy tales of my childhood.
Many, many thanks for St. Mark’s little gold cousin of a lion. He is a
dear and I am now wearing him on my chain. I shall look for you next
Sunday in Venice.
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