up the passes of the Apennines or perhaps along the grotto under Virgil’s tomb⁠—two little dark-eyed, white-toothed Italian vagabonds, of twelve to fourteen years of age, one with a hurdy-gurdy, the other with a cage of white mice. The coach passed on, and their small Italian chatter died in the distance; and I was left to marvel how they had wandered into that country, and how they fared in it, and what they thought of it, and when (if ever) they should see again the silver windbreaks run among the olives, and the stone-pine stand guard upon Etruscan sepulchres.