CHAPTER XV.
'Can you stand this heat ?' said Lucy, anxiously.
'Oh, it will soon be cooler,' was Eleanor's languid reply.
She and Lucy sat side by side in a large and ancient landau; Mrs.
Burgoyne's maid, Marie Vefour, was placed opposite to them, a little sulky and silent.

On the box, beside the driver of the lean brown horses, was a bright-eyed, neatly-dressed youth who was going with the ladies to Torre Amiata.
They had just left the hill-town of Orvieto, had descended rapidly into the valley lying to the south-west of its crested heights, and were now mounting again on the further side.

As they climbed higher and higher Lucy, whose attention had been for a time entirely absorbed by the weariness of the frail woman beside her, began to realise that they were passing through a scene of extraordinary beauty.

Her eyes, which had been drawn and anxious, relaxed.

She looked round her with a natural and rising joy.
To their left, as the road turned in zig-zag to the east, was the marvellous town which the traveller who has seen Palestine likens to Jerusalem, so steep and high and straight is the crest of warm brown and orange precipice on which it stands, so deep the valleys round it, so strange and complete the fusion between the city and the rock, so conspicuous the place of the great cathedral, which is Orvieto, as the Temple was Zion.
It was the sixth of June, and the day had been very hot.