But I like best the boys who carry trays of plaster images which have been made in their little villages up among the mountains, and which they bring here just as they sometimes take them to America.
We saw also the straw market, and the women braiding the straw and making hats. You shall see the one which Mother bought for me, and which I wear every day.
And this brings me to the reason for writing you this letter. We are going to leave the music of the churches, the pictures, the sculptures, the peasants and the market-place, and go into the country to see the harvests.
I shall miss hearing the constant ringing of the church bells, and seeing the squads of soldiers marching to the sound of military music. And perhaps I shall never again sleep in a room with barred windows overlooking the blue waters of an Italian river, and look through those same bars into the faces of sweet nuns and shaven monks as they pass on the sidewalk outside.
But we can have the automobile only a few days longer, and it is our great wish that you join us in Florence and take the trip with us to Rome.
Then if you will but stay with us for a few weeks in Rome, we shall not get lost again because of being unable to speak Italian. Mother says that you will be tongue and eyes for us.
It was a long letter. Rafael read it aloud to his mother, and at the end he spoke without looking up at her.
She did not answer for several moments, and he spoke again. "I know so little of Italy, outside of Venice," he urged. "Those Americans go everywhere and see the whole world."
"That is true," his mother answered, "and you may never have such another opportunity to see the Eternal City. You may go," she added finally, to Rafael's great delight.
"That is good! I will start as soon as you can pack some clothes for me," he cried. He half thought she would go at once to pack them, but she sat still, and began to talk about her girlhood.
"I was born near the hotel where your friend is living," she said, "and know every foot of ground in Florence. It is a pity you are not going to be there on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. Then you would see a sight that is seen nowhere outside of Florence."
"It is called the 'Burning of the Car,'" she told him. "Back in the time of the Crusaders, one of the men of old Florence who went to Jerusalem brought from the Holy Sepulchre two pieces of the stone, and also a torch lighted from the holy light that has been kept burning there since the time Christ was crucified.