Excerpt from Her Friend Laurence: A Novel

The Amaldi Palace stands in a small square, not far from the beautiful old church of Santa Maria Novella, fills up nearly one side of the piazza, and is stately enough to be noticeable, rich as Florence is in picturesque and storied edifices.

There are three or four courts, and the vast pile has numerous occupants, but one quadrangle, with its separate entrance, belongs to Violet Cameron. She has not, however, asserted her claims to proprietorship by giving her portion of the mansion a new name, and therein, I think, has shown wisdom. Nowadays, in Florence and Rome, the traveler not unfrequently finds historical dwellings, which have been re-christened under the Anglo-Saxon cognomens of their present owners, but I cannot persuade myself that Palazzo Sankey and Villino Jenkinson sound as well as their original Italian titles.

In the beginning of October, 187-, Miss Cameron returned to Florence, after more than a year's absence, intending to spend the rest of the autumn, and perhaps the whole winter, unless it should prove one of those hopelessly rainy seasons, which the variable Tuscan climate will occasionally disgrace itself by adopting and clinging to for several consecutive months.

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