" She watched us as I
held the bowl for the Princess to drink, and asked quaintly, "But is
there truly no marrying in heaven? I have thought upon that many
times, and always it puzzles me."
We said farewell to her, and took her blessings with us as she
watched us across the head of the ravine. Then followed another
half-hour of silence and sharp climbing: but the worst was over, and
by-and-by the range tailed off into a chain of lessening hills over
which in the purple distance rose a solitary sharp cone with a
ruinous castle upon it, which (said the Princess) was Seneca's Tower
at the head of the Vale of Luri.
We were now beyond the danger of the Genoese, and therefore turned
aside to the left and descended the slopes to the high-road, along
which we made good speed until, having passed the tower and the mouth
of the gorge which leads up to it from the westward, we came, almost
at nightfall, within sight of Pino by the sea.
Here I proposed that I should go forward to the village and find a
night's lodging for her, pointing out that, the night being warm and
dry, I could make my couch comfortably enough in one of the citron
orchards that here lined the road on the landward side.
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