* * * * *

MACCARONI AND CANVAS.

III.


ON THE CAMPAGNA.

There was an indefinable charm, to a lively man like Caper, in spending
a day in the open country around Rome. Whether it was passed, gun in
hand, near the Solfatara, trying to shoot snipe and woodcock, or, with
paint-box and stool, seated under a large white cotton umbrella,
sketching in the valley of Poussin or out on the Via Appia, that day was
invariably marked down to be remembered.

On one of those golden February mornings, when the pretty English girls
tramp through the long grass of the Villa Borghese, gathering the
perfumed violets into those modest little bouquets, that peep out from
their setting of green leaves, like faith struggling with jealousy,
Caper, Rocjean, and a good-natured German, named Von Bluhmen, made an
excursion out in the Campagna.

They hired a one-horse vetturo in the piazza di Spagna, and packing in
their sketching materials and a basket well filled with luncheon and
bottles of red wine, started off, soon reaching the Saint Sebastian
gate. Further on, they passed the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and saw
streaming over the Campagna the Roman hunt-hounds, twenty couples,
making straight tails after a red fox, while a score of well-mounted