"_Venice, May 10, 1868._--We had a terribly hot journey by Spoleto
and Ancona, and came on to Este. It is a long drive up from the
station to the primitive little town close under the Euganean
Hills, with the ruined castle where the first Guelph was born. The
inn (La Speranza) is an old palace, and our sittingroom was
thirty-four feet long. The country is luxuriance itself, covered
with corn and flax, separated by rows of peach and fig trees, with
vines leaping from tree to tree. I drove to Arqua, a most
picturesque village in a hollow of the hills. In the little court
of the church is Petrarch's tomb, of red Verona marble, and on the
high ridge his house, almost unaltered, with old frescoes of his
life, his chair, his chest, and his stuffed cat, shrunk almost to a
weasel."
"_Augsburg, May 24._--From Venice we saw Torcello--the Mother, Lea,
and I in a _barca_ gliding over those shallow mysterious waters to
the distant island and its decaying church, where we sat to draw
near Attila's marble chair half buried in the rank growth of the
mallows.
[Illustration: PETRARCH'S TOMB, ARQUA.[374]]
"We came away by an early train to Verona, and drove in the
afternoon to San Zenone, and then to the beautiful Giusti gardens
for the sunset. Mother was able to climb up to the summer-house on
the height, and the gardener gave us pinks and roses.
"On the 24th we came on to Trent, a most attractive place, with an
interesting cathedral, fine fountains, beautiful trees, and
surroundings of jagged pink mountains tipped with snow. Cheating
the Alps by crossing the Brenner, we went by Salzburg to
Berchtesgaden, where we found quiet rooms with a splendid view of
the snow-clad Watzmann. We were rowed down the Königsee as far as
the waterfall, Lea dreadfully frightened on the lake."
[Illustration: TOMB OF THE COUNT OF CASTELBARCO, VERONA.[375]]
From Augsburg we went to Oberwesel on the Rhine, where we were very
happy in a primitive hotel amid the vines and old timberhouses. On our
second morning there, while I was drawing on the shore of the river, a
strange and terrible presentiment came over me of some great misfortune,
some overwhelming grief which was then taking place in England. I threw
down my drawing things and hurried back to the hotel to my mother.
"Never," I said, "have these sudden presentiments come to me without
meaning. I am sure you will listen to me when I say that we ought to be
in England directly."--"Yes," she said, "I quite believe it; let us go
at once;" and then and there, in the hot morning, we walked down to the
train. We travelled all night, and at daybreak we were in England. I
confess that, as we travelled, the detailed impression which I had from
my presentiment was wrong. I thought of what would have affected my
mother most. I fancied that, as I was sitting on the Rhine shore, Arthur
Stanley had died at Westminster. But John Gidman met us with our little
carriage at Hastings, and as we drove up to Holmhurst he told me the
dreadful truth--that, at the very moment of my presentiment, my sister
Esmeralda had expired.