He was clothed in white
not whiter than his wonderful pallor. My father implies in a remark
that Pio Nono impressed him by a becoming sincerity of countenance,
and this was so entirely my infantile opinion that I became eloquent
about the Pope, and was rewarded by a gift from my mother of a little
medallion of him and a gold scudo with an excellent likeness thereon,
both always tenderly reverenced by me.
Going to the Pincian Hill on Sunday afternoons, when my father quite
regularly made me his companion, was the event of my week which
entertained me best of all. To play a simple game of stones on one of
the gray benches in the late afternoon sunshine, with him for
courteous opponent, was to feel my eyes, lips, hands, all my being,
glow with the fullest human happiness. When he threw down a pebble
upon one of the squares which he had marked with chalk, I was
enchanted. When one game was finished, I trembled lest he would not go
on with another. He was never fatigued or annoyed--outwardly. He had
as much control over the man we saw in him as a sentinel on duty.
Therefore he proceeded with the tossing of pebbles, genially though
quietly, not exhibiting the least reluctance, and uttering a few
amused sounds, like mellow wood-notes. Between the buxom groups of
luxuriant foliage the great stream of fashion rolled by in carriages,
the music of the well-trained band pealing forth upon the breeze; and
in the tinted distance, beyond the wall of the high-perched garden
which surrounded us, the sunset shook out its pennons.
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