Page:Wha Katy Did Next - Coolidge (1886).djvu/209

 "If it does n't, I shall lose all my confidence in human nature."

Katy's confidence in human nature was not doomed to be impaired. There stood the famous tower, when they reached the Place del Duomo in Pisa, next morning, looking all aslant, exactly as it does in the pictures and the alabaster models, and seeming as if in another moment it must topple over, from its own weight, upon their heads. Mrs. Ashe declared that it was so unnatural that it made her flesh creep; and when she was coaxed up the winding staircase to the top, she turned so giddy that they were all thankful to get her safely down to firm ground again. She turned her back upon the tower, as they crossed the grassy space to the majestic old Cathedral, saying that if she thought about it any more, she should become a disbeliever in the attraction of gravitation, which she had always been told all respectable people must believe in.

The guide showed them the lamp swinging by a long slender chain, before which Galileo