ed in a carriage, and the endless galleries in the museums resulted in producing physical exhaustion. Moreover she was constantly experiencing disappointments, in respect of pictures, statues or

rs, to the shrill whining of their guitars, filled the silent street with a sobbing passion of music. At lunch she considered that she had been lucky in her pension, in her little corner at the table. She was interested in Baronin von Rothkirch, with her indifferent, aristocratic condescension towards Rudyard, because she saw how residence abroad can draw a person out of the narrow ring of caste principles. The young Baronesse, who cared nothing about life and merely sketched and painted, interested her because of her whispering intimacy with Rudyard, which she failed to understand. Miss Hope was so

ort walk by herself down the Corso or on the Pincio and then return home, make her own tea in her litt

d fro; spoons and forks clattered. There was none of the melancholy spirit of so many tables-d'h?te. The people knew one another; and the excitement of Roman life, the oxygen in the Roman air seemed to lend an added vivacity to the gestures and c

tant service would be held in this church or that. To English ladies, who were not fully informed, he would now and then, as it were casually, impart details about the complexities of Catholic ritual and the Catholic hierarchy; he explained the nationalities denoted by the various colours of the seminarists whom you met in shoals of an afternoon on the Pincio, staring at St. Peter's, in

ression of her own arms to the album. And the patterns were greatly admired: gold brocades; silks heavily interwoven with silver; spangled tulles. Miss Hope related how she had come by them: she knew one of the queen's waiting-women, who had formerly been in service with an American; and this waiting-woman was now able to procure the patterns for her at a high price: a precious bit of material picked up while the queen was trying on, or sometimes even cut out of a broad seam. The child was prouder of her collection of patterns than an Italian prince of his paintings, said Baronin von Rothkirch. But, notwithstanding this absurdity, this vanity, Cornélie came to like the pretty American girl because of her candid and unsophisticated nature. She looked most attractive in the eve

which always afforded a good view of her pretty teeth, but m

a marchioness is higher than a baroness, said Mrs. von Rothkirch-drag her into a corner and, if possible, monopolize her throughout the evening. Rudyard would then join them; and Cornélie, seeing this, wondered what Rudyard was, who he was and what he wa