threw herself prone among the bushes, and burst into an uncontrollable
fit of sobs and weeping. I was horrified with amazement. What had I
done, or what left undone? It was long before I could get a word out
of her. At last she articulated amidst her sobs, "It is TOO hot! It
is cruel to bring one here!" Yes, it was _too_ hot; but that was all.
Fortunately I was not the cruel bringer. I consoled her to the best of
my power, and induced her to wipe her eyes. I dabbled a handkerchief
in a neighbouring fountain for her to wash her streaked face, and
eventually I got her to the top of the hill, where all the others had
long since arrived.

The incident was entirely characteristic of her. She was furiously
angry with all things in heaven above and on the earth below because
she was at the moment inconvenienced.

Here is the beginning of a letter from her of a date some months
anterior to the Boboli adventure:

"Illustrissimo Signor Tommaso" (that was the usual style of her
address to me), "as your book is just out you must feel quite _en
train_ for puffs of any description. Therefore I send you the best I
have seen for a long while, _La Physiologie du Fumeur_. But even if
you don't like it, _don't_ put it in your pipe and smoke it. _Vide_
Joseph Fume."

A little subsequently she writes: "Signor Tommaso, the only revenge
I shall take for your lecture" (probably on the matter of some
outrageous extravagance) "is not to call you _illustrissimo_ and not
to send you an illuminated postillion" (a previous letter having been
ornamented with such a decoration at the top of the sheet), "but let