and two or three Italian officers of junior rank. A Corporal with a
magnificent voice, an operatic singer before the war, came in to sing
one night, and a Private from his Battalion played his accompaniment. In
Italy, as in France, the art of conversation and a keen joy in it, are
still alive, perhaps because Bridge is still almost unknown. Signor
Lazzari's handsome and charming daughter was an admirable hostess.

At Signor Burini's I was also most hospitably received and drank some
very excellent champagne. I used to talk to his three little girls in
the evenings on the ramparts. Signor Burini's mother remembered
Garibaldi's visit to Palmanova in 1867, the year after Venetia was
liberated from the Austrian yoke and added to United Italy. She was
speaking of this one evening to Shield and he said, "It rained very
heavily that day, didn't it?" Whereat the old lady, much astonished and
evidently suspecting him of some uncanny gift of second sight, replied
that indeed it did. But the truth was that he had been reading an
account of this historic occasion in a local guide book, which related
that, just as Garibaldi came out on a balcony to address the crowd, a
heavy thunderstorm broke and the Hero of the Two Worlds only said, "You
had all better go home out of the rain."

* * * * *

It can still rain at Palmanova.

One day while I was there the temperature rose to 105 degrees in the
shade, but in the evening a cool breeze stirred the dust and I sat
outside the Albergo Rosa d'Oro, talking with various passers-by. About
nine o'clock bright lightning began to fill the sky, but, as yet, no
rain. And then about eleven, just after I had gone to bed, came a