Travellers are familiar with its aspect--the crowning citadel with the
ring of green turf between it and the city, which stretches across the
shoulders of the mountain, row above row of gray houses, with the
magnificent pile of the church and convent of St. Francis at its
western extremity, clasped to the steep rock with a hold that an
earthquake could scarcely loosen. Three long streets stretch from east
to west, the central one a very respectable street, clean, well-paved,
and delightfully quiet. You may sit in a window there and hear nothing
the livelong day but the drip of a fountain and the screaming of clouds
of swallows, which are, without exception, the most impudent birds that
can be imagined. Annoyed one day by the persistent "peeping" of a
swallow that had perched in a nook just outside my window, I leaned out
and frightened him away with my handkerchief. He darted down to a
little olive-plantation below, and a minute after up came a score or
two of swallows and began flying round in a circle directly before my
window, screaming like little demons. Now and then one would dart out
of the circle and make a vicious dip toward my face, with the evident
wish to peck my eyes out, so that I was glad to draw back. It reminded
me of the famous circular battery which attacked one of the Confederate
forts during our civil war, and it was quite as well managed.

The _vetturino_ whom we took from the station up to the town on our
arrival told me, when I gave my address, that the Sor Filomena had gone
away from Asisi, and I had better go to the hotel Leone. I insisted on
being taken to the Sor Filomena's house. He replied that the house was
closed, and renewed his recommendations of the Leone. After the
inevitable combat we succeeded in having ourselves set down at our
lodgings, where Sor Filomena's rosy face appeared at the open door.

"Why did you tell such a lie?" I asked of the unblushing vetturino,