ever be drawn to confession again.

After trying various shelters from the weather and being driven from
each by unforeseen circumstances--a cloister or two, a church (where the
sacristan surprised us asleep one morning and turned us out into the
rain), an old family sepulchre, an empty palace, and a baker's oven
which had fallen to be let (and had been occupied by cockroaches)--we
finally discovered and took possession of a ruined tower near the church
of Sant' Andrea, which suited us excellently well. It had been the
fortress of a great old family in the Middle Ages, that of the
Vergiolesi, from whom sprang the beautiful Selvaggia, beloved by Cino of
Pistoja. The lower floor being choked with rubbish and fallen masonry,
the only access to our retreat was by a broken beam projecting from the
original doorway. You jumped for this, caught it if you were expert
enough, and must swing yourself up to straddle it. You could then gain
the string-course of brick which encircled the tower, and, edging along
that, reach the lower sill of a window. That window was our front door.
The interior was perfectly dry, rainproof and (from all quarters but
one) windproof. Enchanting occupancy to me! fit household for a poet
without pence; and to Virginia, who had never known a dry lodging, a
very palace. Here by the light of candle ends, got for the asking from
the churches, I made her acquainted with letters; I held her fingers at
the charcoal until they could move alone. I pointed my own along the
page until her eye could run true. The greater part of the walls of our
chamber was covered with her sprawled lettering: and, for all I know to
the contrary, may reveal to this day the names of Francis Strelley, of
Aurelia Gualandi and of Virginia Strozzi. It is a fine proof of her
loyalty to our bargain that the first name which Virginia essayed to
write was mine, but the second, Aurelia's. She took her own in hand
last. The verb chosen for these easy essays was as usual amare: but its