Mrs. Gray was fined for not being ready for breakfast at the time appointed, on the very first morning after leaving Florence. It was at a place called Arezzo. The time appointed for the breakfast was at seven o'clock. Mr. George knocked at all the doors a little before quarter past six. About quarter before seven the two boys came into the breakfast room, and soon afterwards Mr. George and Rosie came. The breakfast was brought in and set upon the table by the waiter a few minutes before seven. The boys immediately began to set the chairs round.
"Quick! quick!" said Josie. "Let us sit down quick, and mother will be tardy, and have to pay a fine."
"Ah, but it does not go by our sitting down," said Rollo. "It goes by Mrs. Gray's watch."
"Yes," said Rosie; "I have got the watch. It wants a minute of the time now."
"I hope she won't come," said Josie.
"She will come," said Rosie. "She has been almost ready for some time."
The children all took their seats at the table. Rosie had the watch before her, and was closely observing the minute hand. Mr. George, who thought it not polite that he should take his seat before Mrs. Gray came, stood waiting by the fire. It was a cool morning, and so Mr. George had made a little fire when he first got up.
Notwithstanding Rosie's prediction, Mrs. Gray did not come. Rosie watched the second hand, and as soon as it passed the mark she said,-
"There! it is seven o'clock; now mother is tardy."
Josie clapped his hands, and even Rollo looked quite pleased. In about two minutes the door of Mrs. Gray's bedroom opened, and Mrs. Gray appeared.
"You are too late, mother!" said Josie, in an exulting tone. "You are too late!"
"It does not depend on you to decide," said Mrs. Gray; "it depends upon Rosie."
"Well, mother, you are really too late," said Rosie. "You are two minutes beyond the time, or a minute and a half, at the very least, when you opened the door. So you must pay the fine."
"Yes; and you must pay it to me," said Josie. "I am the treasurer."
"But you have not heard my excuse yet," said Mrs. Gray. "You don't know but that I have got a good excuse."
"Ah, that makes no difference, mother," said Josie. "Excuses go for nothing."
"Indeed!" said Mrs. Gray. "Is that the agreement? Let us see, Rosie."
So Rosie took the paper out of her pocket, and with Josie's assistance,-who looked over very eagerly all the time,-she found the passage, and Josie read as follows, speaking the words in a very distinct and emphatic manner:-
"'No excuses shall be heard, nor shall there be any release from the fine, except,' and so forth, and so forth. So you see, mother, you can't be excused."
"I see," said Mrs. Gray. "The language is very plain indeed; so I'll pay the fine. I pay it very willingly. It would be very dishonorable in any of us, after having deliberately adopted the rules, to manifest any unwillingness to abide by them."
So Mrs. Gray took out of her pocket a small silver coin called a paul, which Mr. George said was a good deal more than six cents, but which she said was near enough to the amount of the fine, and paid it into Josie's hands. Josie put it safely into a certain compartment of his wallet, which he had set apart for the purpose.
The truth was, that Mrs. Gray contrived to be tardy that morning on purpose, in order to set an example of exact and cheerful submission to the law, and to give a practical illustration, in her own case, of the strictness with which, when once enacted, such laws ought to be enforced. She knew very well that if she had once submitted to be fined, when she was only a minute and a half behind the time, and also to be refused a hearing for her excuse, nobody could afterwards expect any indulgence. The effect produced was just what she had intended, and the whole party were extremely punctual all the way. There were only a few fines assessed, and they were all paid at once, without any objection.
The road lay for a day through a small country called Tuscany. The scenery was very beautiful. Although it was so early in the spring, the wheat fields were every where very green, and in the hedges, and along the banks by the road side, multitudes of flowers were blooming. For a considerable portion of the way, where our travellers passed, the occupation of the inhabitants was that of braiding straw for bonnets; and here every body seemed to be braiding. In the streets of the villages, at the doors of the houses, and all along the roads every where, men, women, and children were to be seen standing in little groups, or walking about together in the sun, braiding the straw with a rapid motion, like that of knitting. They had a little bundle of prepared straw, at their side, and the braid which they had made hung rolled up in a coil before them. They looked contented and happy at their work, so that the scene was a very pleasing, as well as a very curious one to see.
After leaving the frontiers of Tuscany, the party entered the Papal States-a country occupying the centre of Italy, with Rome for the capital of it. The Papal States are so called because they are under the dominion of the pope. Of course the Catholic religion reigns here in absolute supremacy.
While passing through this country, the children, or rather, as Rollo would wish to have it expressed, the young people of the party, were very much interested in observing the crosses which were put up here and there by the road side, with the various emblems and symbols connected with our Saviour's death affixed to them. The first time that one of these crosses attracted their attention, Rosie was riding in the coupé with Mr. George and Rollo. There was room enough for her to sit very comfortably between them.
"See!" said Rosie; "see! Look at that cross, with all those images and figures upon it!"
The cross was pretty large, and was made of wood. It was set up by the road side, like a sign post in America. From the middle of the post out to the left hand end of the arm of the cross, there was a spear fixed. This spear, of course, represented the weapon of the Roman soldier, by which the body of Jesus was pierced in the side. From the same part of the post out to the end of the opposite arm of the cross was a pole with two sponges at the end of it, which represented the sponges with which the soldiers reached the vinegar up for Jesus to drink. Then all along the cross bar were various other emblems, such as the nails, the hammer, a pair of pincers, a little ladder, a great key, and on the top a cock, to represent the cock which crowed at the time of Peter's betrayal of his Lord.
[Illustration: EMBLEMS ON THE CROSS.]
Rollo and Rosie both looked at these things very eagerly, as the carriage drove by. Rosie seemed somewhat shocked at the sight.
"How curious that is!" said Rollo.
"I suppose it is all idolatry," said Rosie, speaking very seriously.
"No," said Mr. George, "it is not necessarily idolatry. These kind of contrivances originated in the middle ages, when the poor people who lived in all these countries were very ignorant, as indeed they are now; and inasmuch as they could not read, and there were no schools in which to teach them, they had to be instructed by such contrivances as these."
"They are very poor contrivances, I think," said Rollo.
"They would be very poor as a substitute for Sunday schools, and other such advantages as the children enjoy in America," said Mr. George; "but not very poor, after all, for the people for whom they were intended. Go back in imagination five hundred years, and conceive of a little child, born in one of these peasants' huts. His father and mother probably have never even seen a book, and are not capable of understanding any thing that is not perfectly simple and plain. The child, walking along the road side, sees this cross. He stops to look up at it, and wonders what all those little objects fastened upon it mean. After a while, when he grows a little older, he asks his mother, when she is coming by with him some day, what they mean. Now, she would not have been able, of herself, and without any aid, to give the child any regular instruction whatever, but she can explain to him about the cross, and the various emblems that are upon it."