Hilda's Tower

It is with a kindred sentiment, that we now follow the course of our
story back through the Flaminian Gate, and, treading our way to the Via
Portoghese, climb the staircase to the upper chamber of the tower where
we last saw Hilda.

Hilda all along intended to pass the summer in Rome; for she had laid
out many high and delightful tasks, which she could the better complete
while her favorite haunts were deserted by the multitude that thronged
them throughout the winter and early spring. Nor did she dread the
summer atmosphere, although generally held to be so pestilential. She
had already made trial of it, two years before, and found no worse
effect than a kind of dreamy languor, which was dissipated by the first
cool breezes that came with autumn. The thickly populated centre of the
city, indeed, is never affected by the feverish influence that lies in
wait in the Campagna, like a besieging foe, and nightly haunts those
beautiful lawns and woodlands, around the suburban villas, just at the
season when they most resemble Paradise. What the flaming sword was to
the first Eden, such is the malaria to these sweet gardens and grove. We
may wander through them, of an afternoon, it is true, but they cannot
be made a home and a reality, and to sleep among them is death. They are
but illusions, therefore, like the show of gleaming waters and shadowy
foliage in a desert.

But Rome, within the walls, at this dreaded season, enjoys its festal
days, and makes itself merry with characteristic and hereditary
pas-times, for which its broad piazzas afford abundant room. It leads
its own life with a freer spirit, now that the artists and foreign
visitors are scattered abroad. No bloom, perhaps, would be visible in
a cheek that should be unvisited, throughout the summer, by more
invigorating winds than any within fifty miles of the city; no bloom,
but yet, if the mind kept its healthy energy, a subdued and colorless
well-being. There was consequently little risk in Hilda's purpose to
pass the summer days in the galleries of Roman palaces, and her nights
in that aerial chamber, whither the heavy breath of the city and its
suburbs could not aspire. It would probably harm her no more than it
did the white doves, who sought the same high atmosphere at sunset, and,
when morning came, flew down into the narrow streets, about their daily
business, as Hilda likewise did.