Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/158

140 had collected supplied Lavinia with materials for unlimited romances: cuff-buttons made from bits of marble picked up among the ruins of Carthage; diamond crescents and ear-rings bought in Toledo, so antique and splendid that relic-loving Amanda raved about them; photographs of the belles of Constantinople, Moorish coins and pipes, bits of curious Indian embroidery; and, best of all, the power of telling how each thing was found in so graphic a manner that Eastern bazaars, ruins, and palaces seemed to rise before the listeners as in the time of the magic story-tellers. But all too soon he packed his knapsack, and promising to bring each of his friends the nose or ear of one of the shattered saints from the great cathedral at Strasbourg, the "Peri" vanished from Paradis, and left them all lamenting.

The little flurry in Italy ending peacefully, our travellers after much discussion resolved to cross the Alps and spend the winter in Rome, if possible. So with tragic farewells from those they left behind them, who, hoping to keep them longer, predicted all manner of misfortunes, the three strong-minded ladies rumbled away in the coupè of a diligence to Brieg.