There is a house at Ronco where refreshments and
excellent Faido beer can be had. The old lady who keeps the house
would make a perfect Fate; I saw her sitting at her window
spinning, and looking down over the Ticino valley as though it were
the world and she were spinning its destiny. She had a somewhat
stern expression, thin lips, iron-grey eyes, and an aquiline nose;
her scanty locks straggled from under the handkerchief which she
wore round her head. Her employment and the wistful far-away look
she cast upon the expanse below made a very fine ensemble. "She
would have afforded," as Sir Walter Scott says, "a study for a
Rembrandt, had that celebrated painter existed at the period," {9}
but she must have been a smart-looking handsome girl once.
She brightened up in conversation. I talked about Piora, which I
already knew, and the Lago Tom, the highest of the three lakes.
She said she knew the Lago Tom. I said laughingly, "Oh, I have no
doubt you do. We've had many a good day at the Lago Tom, I know."
She looked down at once.
In spite of her nearly eighty years she was active as a woman of
forty, and altogether she was a very grand old lady. Her house is
scrupulously clean. While I watched her spinning, I thought of
what must so often occur to summer visitors. I mean what sort of a
look-out the old woman must have in winter, when the wind roars and
whistles, and the snow drives down the valley with a fury of which
we in England can have little conception.
Pages:
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77