" I did not tell him of his
mistake.
PIORA. (FROM CHAPTER VI. OF ALPS AND SANCTUARIES.) {275}
An excursion which may be very well made from Faido is to the Val Piora,
which I have already more than once mentioned. There is a large hotel
here which has been opened some years, but has not hitherto proved the
success which it was hoped it would be. I have stayed there two or three
times and found it very comfortable; doubtless, now that Signer Lombardi
of the Hotel Prosa has taken it, it will become a more popular place of
resort.
I took a trap from Faido to Ambri, and thence walked over to Quinto; here
the path begins to ascend, and after an hour Ronco is reached. 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," {276} but she must have been a
smart-looking, handsome girl once.
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