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Updated: May 12, 2025
Sometimes she walked out to Ardenza, a village a mile and a half distant, halted always at the same stone seat in the little public garden, and then strolled back again, in blissful ignorance of being so closely watched. If Rosalie had any suspicion that Valentine was not the Princess Helen, then there was, I foresaw, a grave and constant danger.
"Yes, but we didn't stay there more than an hour to send a telegram, I think it was. Father said there was nothing to see there. He and I went ashore, and I must say I was rather disappointed." "You are quite right. The town itself is ugly and uninteresting. But the outskirts San Jacopo, Ardenza and Antigniano are all delightful. It was unfortunate that you did not see them.
The only place of amusement here in summer is a drive along the sea shore, called the Ardenza, which is frequented every evening by all who can raise a vehicle. I visited it twice with a German friend. We met one evening the Princess Corsini, wife of the Governor of Leghorn, on horseback a young, but not pretty woman.
"My friend, Hylton Chater Mr. Gordon Gregg," he said, introducing us, and then when, as we shook hands, the clean-shaven man exclaimed, smiling pleasantly "Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Gregg. You are not a stranger by any means to Hornby or myself. Indeed, we've got a couple of your books on board. But I had no idea you lived out here." "At Ardenza," I said.
"O Aurora," exhaled from Gerald, while, looking not far from his usual self, he said that Ardenza by the sea, a mere three miles from Leghorn, was a very pretty place, "Aurora, you are warmth, you are shelter, you are rest. I have no hearth or home except as you let me in out of the desperate cold of loneliness, and grant me to warm myself at your big heart.
Just after ten o'clock at night I had followed Rosalie along by the sea to Ardenza, where she was sitting alone upon her usual seat in a secluded spot, at the edge of the public garden, on a kind of small promontory that ran in a semicircle out to the sea. Behind her was a dark thicket of azaleas, and in front the calm moonlit Mediterranean.
The picture itself, loaded now with jewellery, is apparently a work of the thirteenth century; but it is said to have been miraculously brought hither from Negroponte. It was found at Ardenza close by, by a shepherd, who carried it to Montenero, where, as I suppose, he lived; but just before he won the top of the hill it grew so heavy he had to set it down.
The hours passed, and beneath the brilliant moon we smoked long into the night, for after the blazing sunshine of that Tuscan town the cool sea-wind at night is very refreshing. From where we sat we commanded a view of the whole of the sea-front of Leghorn and Ardenza, with its bright open-air café-concerts and restaurants in full swing all the life and gayety of that popular watering-place.
With a deep blast on the electric horn I swept out of the hotel grounds to the left, and a few moments later we were heading away along the broad sea-road through the pretty villages of Ardenza and Antignano, out into that wild open country that lies between Leghorn and the wide deadly marshes of the fever-stricken Maremma.
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