Paolina, too, had felt that the morning of Ash Wednesday was a
favourable time for the first experiment of an undertaking that a
little alarmed her. For she also had calculated that on such a
morning she should be little likely to meet anybody. It was just
about six o'clock when Paolina started on her proposed walk; and she
passed through the Porta Nuova, therefore, a little more than half-
an-hour before Ludovico and his companion passed, travelling in the
same direction.

The road, which it was necessary for her to follow in order to reach
St. Apollinare in Classe, is the same for the whole of the distance
between the city and the ancient church as that which Ludovico and
Bianca would follow to reach the celebrated pine forest. The soil on
which the forest stands is composed of the accumulation of sand
which the rivers--mainly the Po--have brought from distant
mountains, and deposited in the bed of the Adriatic since the old
church was built "in Classe,"--where the fleet once used to be
moored. The building thus stands nearly at the edge of the forest,
hardly more than a stone's throw from the furthest advanced
sentinels of the wood. The road coming out from the city by the
Porta Nuova, on its way to the little town of Cervia, a few miles to
the southward, traverses ground once thickly covered with palaces,
streets, and churches, now open fields,--and passes by the western
front and doorway of the almost deserted old Basilica, a little
before it reaches the turning off towards the left, which enters the
forest.

The walk before Paolina, when she had passed the city gate, was
about two miles or rather more. So that had La Bianca taken a few