Barbara's was to pose as the adorer of Italy, the enthusiastic glorifier of Italian unity.

She spoke Italian feebly, but, with English people, never lost an opportunity of babbling its phrases.
Speak to her of Rome, and before long she was sure to murmur rapturously, "Roma capitale d'Italia!"-- the watch-word of antipapal victory.

Of English writers she loved, or affected to love, those only who had found inspiration south of the Alps.

The proud mother repeated a story of Barbara's going up to the wall of Casa Guidi and kissing it.
In her view, the modern Italians could do no wrong; they were divinely regenerate.

She praised their architecture.
Madeline--whom her sisters addressed affectionately as "Mad"-- professed a wider intellectual scope; less given to the melting mood than Barbara, less naive in her enthusiasms, she took for her province aesthetic criticism in its totality, and shone rather in censure than in laudation.