Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/108

Rh Lady Hilda said nothing.

Palestrina was twelve miles and more from the city, and stood on the high hills facing the south-west; it was half fortress, half palace; in early times its lords had ruled from its height all the country round; and later on, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, a great Cardinal of the Della Rocca had made it into as sumptuous a dwelling-place as Caprarola or Poggio a Cajano.

Subsequently the family had ranged itself against the ruling faction of the province, and had suffered from war and confiscation; still later, Palestrina had been plundered by the French troops of Napoleon; yet, despoiled and impoverished as it was, it was majestic still, and even beautiful; for, unlike most such places, it had kept its girdle of oak and ilex woods; and its gardens, though wild and neglected, were unshorn of their fair proportions; and the fountains fell into their marble basins, and splashed the maiden-hair ferns that hung over them as they had dope in another age for the delight of the great Cardinal and his favourites.

Della Rocca received them in the southern