"
"Go, dear, at once; do not talk. I see Irma coming back;
go quickly.... Well, Irma dear, and whose team are you in
this afternoon--Miss Edith's or Miss May's?"
But as soon as she had behaved as usual to her
grand-daughter, she went to the library and took out the
large atlas, for she wanted to know about Monteriano. The
name was in the smallest print, in the midst of a
woolly-brown tangle of hills which were called the
"Sub-Apennines." It was not so very far from Siena, which
she had learnt at school. Past it there wandered a thin
black line, notched at intervals like a saw, and she knew
that this was a railway. But the map left a good deal to
imagination, and she had not got any. She looked up the
place in "Childe Harold," but Byron had not been there. Nor
did Mark Twain visit it in the "Tramp Abroad." The
resources of literature were exhausted: she must wait till
Philip came home. And the thought of Philip made her try
Philip's room, and there she found "Central Italy," by
Baedeker, and opened it for the first time in her life and
read in it as follows:--
MONTERIANO (pop. 4800). Hotels: Stella d'Italia,
moderate only; Globo, dirty. * Caffe Garibaldi. Post and
Telegraph office in Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, next to
theatre. Photographs at Seghena's (cheaper in
Florence). Diligence (1 lira) meets principal trains.
Chief attractions (2-3 hours): Santa Deodata, Palazzo
Pubblico, Sant' Agostino, Santa Caterina, Sant' Ambrogio,
Palazzo Capocchi.
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