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 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE PIAZZA 
 OF ST PETER, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
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 CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY, W.
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 
 
 IN THE 
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER, 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES.— VOL. I. 
 
 3Lontfon : 
 CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1S77. 
 
 {All rights reserved.)
 
 The stories in these volumes have been collected from various 
 periodical publications, to the proprietors of which the author 
 tenders his thanks for their kind permission to reprint them.
 
 
 szz> 
 
 T74£f 
 
 V.I 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE PIAZZA OF ST. PETER... i 
 
 GIULIA VARANI ; OR, ST, PETER'S DAY AT 
 
 BELLUNO... ... ... ... ... ... 127 
 
 THE ATKINSES AT ROME .. ... ... ... 155
 
 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE PIAZZA 
 OF ST. PETER.
 
 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It is a lovely morning in June, and Rome is 
 looking beautiful exceedingly, with a beauty 
 that is never seen by nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine persons out of every thousand of the 
 visitors from every part of the world who yearly 
 throng the Eternal City. The race of tourists 
 are " servum pecus," as Horace calls " imitators," 
 perhaps even more markedly than the rest of 
 our imitative kind. They follow each other 
 over the same gap in the same hedge. They 
 do this year exactly what they did last year. 
 This Roman Pactolus begins to ebb immediately 
 after Easter, and the genuine Roman world is left 
 to live and enjoy itself after its own native fashion. 
 
 VOL. I. b
 
 2 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 And this it was preparing to do in a special 
 manner on the morning in question ; for that 
 June morning was one of the greatest and 
 highest of Rome's high days and holidays. On 
 the sixtieth day after Easter in every year, the 
 Roman church celebrates the festival of the 
 " Corpus Domini " — in every year from the 
 thirtieth of the thirteenth century, when a 
 heavenly vision commanded the blessed Griuliana 
 of Mont Corneillon, near Liege, to establish the 
 ceremony, till the year 1870, when, after six 
 hundred and forty anniversaries, it took place 
 in Rome for the last time probably for evermore. 
 
 But matters had not yet come quite to that 
 pass with the city and its eternities ; and on 
 the occasion to which the reader's attention is 
 invited there were yet two or three more Corpus 
 Domini celebrations to come. 
 
 It was the most delicious hour of all the 
 twenty-four in a Roman June day — the hour 
 after sunrise — on that high festival, that a 
 couple of girls emerged into the vast open space 
 in front of St. Peter's Church, from the street 
 called the Borgo Yecchio. This space, that lies 
 before the western front of the great church, is 
 divided into two portions — an oblong area on 
 which the Borgo Yecchio opens, and which is
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 6 
 
 farthest from the church, and the much larger 
 circular piazza at the further end of it, imme- 
 diately in front of the western facade of the 
 Basilica, and surrounded by the two vast semi- 
 circular colonnades, which come out from the 
 two angles of the church like huge arms. The 
 first and smaller area is called the Piazza Rusti- 
 cucci, the second the Piazza of St. Peter's ; and 
 these two piazze, forming thus one undivided 
 space, are the scene of the great procession which 
 constitutes the principal part of the grand cere- 
 monial of the day. 
 
 Already at that early hour of the morning 
 there were many people moving in different 
 directions about either piazza ; and were most 
 of them, after considerable hesitation apparently, 
 taking up the positions which they deemed most 
 favourable for securing a good view of the 
 coming show. The two girls that have been 
 mentioned, however, seemed to have no doubt 
 upon the subject. Crossing the Piazza Rusti- 
 cucci diagonally from the end of the Borgo 
 Yecchio, they pressed forward eagerly with an 
 elertness of step to which a Roman of any class 
 or age is rarely excited, towards the end of the 
 colonnade to the right hand of one approaching 
 the church, and there stationed themselves at
 
 4 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 the foot of the last of the huge piers. They 
 glanced around for an instant, and then quietly 
 and deliberately sate themselves down on the 
 corners of the pediment of the pier, both of 
 them with the same action clasping their hands 
 around their knees, prepared to wait. Just as 
 they seated themselves the bells in all the 
 neighbouring belfries began one after another 
 to strike the quarter before five. 
 
 " Five less one quarter. We are a little bit 
 too early, it is true ; but what would you have ; 
 girls are sure to be first at a trysting-place." 
 
 It was the taller and most vigorous-looking 
 of the two girls who spoke. Both were remark- 
 able for their beauty, even at Rome, where 
 female beauty in all classes is more abundant 
 than perhaps in any other city in the world. 
 But they were markedly and even singularly 
 contrasted in appearance. 
 
 Lucia Savelli, she who had spoken, was a 
 superb specimen of the grandest type of the 
 Roman " popolana," or woman of the people — 
 a Roman of the Romans, born in the " Traste- 
 vere," as that portion of the city is called which 
 stands on the right hand side of the Tiber, and 
 the inhabitants of which have always been 
 deemed to have preserved the purity of their
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 
 
 descent from trie old Roman stock more unadul- 
 terated by mixture with foreign elements than 
 any other part of the population of the city. 
 The " Trasteverans " are also famed for their 
 beauty of form and feature, always of the grand 
 and magnificent sort ; and Lucia Savelli was an 
 admirable example of the type. 
 
 She was like Shakespear's Rosalind, " more 
 than common tall," and her robust and vigorous 
 development was perfectly proportioned to her 
 height. An enormous wealth of glossily rip- 
 pling but rather coarse raven-black hair was 
 wound around her majestically carried and 
 beautifully shaped small head, with an effect 
 that to any comparing eye must have made the 
 prevailing fashion of chignon behind and moun- 
 tain atop, appear more stupidly disfiguring and 
 vulgarly tasteless than ever. The superb 
 column of her throat, large and pillar-like in 
 the perfection of its roundness, imparted a noble 
 and proud expression to the general outline of 
 her person, which might have pointed her out 
 to the eye of a sculptor as the very model for a 
 Juno. Brow, eyes, lips, contour of the face, 
 and colouring were all superb. The brow was 
 specially noble ; not lofty, but very broad, and 
 with well-shaped contours about the temples.
 
 6 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 Had this brow and the eyes alone been visible, 
 the expression of Lucia's face would have seemed 
 to be even aggressively stern and defiant ; but 
 the not small mouth, lighted up with brilliantly 
 white and small teeth, and formed of lips the 
 exquisite curving of which seemed calculated 
 to express any amount of unspoken eloquence, 
 had a world of sweetness and good-humour about 
 and around it. And to make the presentment 
 perfect and complete in all that an artistic eye 
 could desire, Lucia, unlike her companion, was 
 dressed in the picturesque costume of the true 
 Roman " popolana," with that most becoming 
 of all head-dresses, the flatly folded white ker- 
 chief, which a thousand drawings and pictures 
 have made familiar to our eyes, on her head. 
 
 Ninetta — have I told you, by the bye, that 
 the name of Lucia's companion was Ninetta 
 Innocenti ? — Ninetta was in her way fully as 
 lovely a girl as Lucia, but her way was a very 
 different one. As to which was the more beau- 
 tiful, the question would be as absurd as to ask 
 whether a rose or a violet smells the sweetest. 
 Undoubtedly the one would appeal more strongly 
 to the sympathies of men of one sort, and the 
 other to those of a different kind ; and one 
 might perhaps be able to divine something as to
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 7 
 
 the characteristics of the man, of whom one 
 should know only which of the two girls he 
 admired most, with less fear of mistake than one 
 could attempt to estimate the characters of the 
 girls themselves from their appearance. 
 
 At all events there could be no doubt as to 
 which of the girls was most artistically adapted 
 to the setting in which her picture Kas to be 
 presented to the reader. There was nothing 
 specially or characteristically Eoman about 
 Kinetta. Exceeding delicacy of form, of colour, 
 of expression, was the leading characteristic of 
 Ninetta's appearance. She was, though by no 
 means short of stature, less tall by an inch or 
 two than her friend ; but had you seen them 
 apart, instead of side by side, it is probable 
 enough that the impression left upon your eye 
 would have led you to imagine, when both were 
 absent, that Ninetta was the taller — so much has 
 slenderness of figure the effect of increasing 
 apparent height, and Ninetta was very slender. 
 "Whether it were that she wore, though it was 
 sadly poverty stricken, the ordinary fashionable 
 style of dress as far as the forms of it went, 
 whereas Lucia was clad in the characteristic cos- 
 tume of a Trasteverina, or whether it were due 
 to any more coquettish strain in the nature of
 
 8 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 the girl, Ninetta's slender waist was made yet 
 more slender by a certain, not excessive, amount 
 of pressure ; whereas that of Lucia appeared as 
 innocent of compression as the lithe round stem 
 of an oak sapling. 
 
 Then, moreover, Ninetta was blonde, with 
 hair of that peculiar Titianesque tint which 
 Italians are apt to think the most beautiful of 
 any possible hue. There was in her face none 
 of the brown-pink colouring which gave to 
 Lucia's cheek the semblance of a sun-ripened 
 peach, and spoke of the very perfection of health 
 and vigour. She was delicately pale, with large 
 violet-coloured liquid eyes, that looked out 
 somewhat mournfully on the world, with an 
 expression that betokened an emotional rather 
 than an intellectual nature. Yet the ordinary 
 observer would have probably judged Ninetta 
 to have a more intellectual expression of face 
 than Lucia. Her fair, beautifully shaped fore- 
 head was much higher than her friend's low 
 brow ! but it was also much narrower. It was 
 a dainty, delicate, finely fashioned, and beauti- 
 fully cut face — that of Ninetta Innocenti, with 
 a slender, delicate nose, small mouth, and little 
 round chin. Had the cheeks been a little fuller 
 and the jaw-bone and chin a little less narrow,
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 9 
 
 the face would have been a perfect oval. As it 
 was, the lower part of it was slenderer than the 
 upper. There was none of the strength in the 
 face which was so marked a characteristic in 
 that of Lucia. It was very fair, very lovely, 
 very excellently well fitted to conciliate love. 
 But there was weakness in the delicacy of it, — 
 weakness in the high and narrow, though not 
 unintellectual forehead, and in the mobile, sensi- 
 tive, and uncertain mouth and little chin. 
 
 " Ah ! that comes from making appointments 
 with them," said Ninetta in reply to the words 
 that had fallen from Lucia, with a little, half 
 demure, half arch casting down of the eyes, 
 evidently intended not for hypocrisy, but for 
 acting as a provocation to her friend. 
 
 But Lucia's nature was too simply straight- 
 forward for any such little comedy to be 
 effective. 
 
 " If I did not know for sure," she said, " that 
 my damo (sweetheart) was quite as anxious to 
 see me as I to see him, I should not come at all ! 
 And being sure, I don't mind waiting. Besides, 
 the grand point is to get our places ; and to 
 judge by the way the people are coming into 
 the piazza, we are none too early for that." 
 
 " All the same, I had rather be waited for
 
 10 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 than wait," returned Ninetta, with a • charming 
 little toss of her head. 
 
 " Then why didn't you make your grand 
 damo join our party here, and see if he would 
 have been here by cock-crow ? " said Lucia, 
 with a laugh in her eye, but without the 
 slightest shade of malice or even of pique in 
 her heart. " Were you afraid ? " she added, 
 with a sly wink and a broad frank smile that 
 showed , all the range of her regular and bril- 
 liantly white teeth. 
 
 " Davvero, no ! " replied Ninetta, with a moue 
 and a shrug of her shoulders ; " but, die ! vi 
 pare I How can you dream of such a thing ! 
 Why, I should not wonder if he was obliged 
 to be in attendance on the Holy Father, to-day 
 too, of all the days in the year. Don't you 
 know, Lucia, that he is one of the great officers, 
 a captain. And I shall be a contessa when he 
 takes me to his own country." 
 
 "His own country!" exclaimed Lucia, staring 
 at her friend, " why what is his country ? I 
 thought your friend was one of our own people." 
 
 " Not at all," said the other, with a toss of the 
 head, which showed that characteristic readiness 
 of the Italians to imagine that a foreign thing 
 or person must, as a matter of course, be better
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 11 
 
 and finer than the person or thing of home 
 growth. " Not at all ! He is a great French 
 officer, sent here by the Emperor to protect our 
 Holy Father from his enemies." 
 
 " Oh ! a Frenchman ; I did not know it," said 
 Lucia ; and then there was silence for a minute 
 or two between the two girls, while Ninetta's 
 eyes scanned the new comers, who continued to 
 throng into the piazza, and Lucia seemed to be 
 busy with her own thoughts. 
 
 From these she was aroused by a greeting 
 from one who was evidently an acquaintance, 
 but whose appearance would have made it seem 
 to any onlooker exceedingly unlikely that he 
 should have been such. No human being would 
 have supposed the new comer to be an Italian, 
 even before he opened his lips. After he had 
 done so, none could have doubted that he be- 
 longed to one of the branches of the great Anglo- 
 Saxon family, either cis or trans Atlantic. He 
 was a tall, spare, middle-aged man, with a shrewd 
 grey eye, aquiline nose, brown weather-beaten 
 healthy-looking complexion, good-humoured and 
 even sweet mouth, and strong, resolute jaw and 
 chin ; a handsome man 'certainly, though with 
 none of the manners or bearing of one ; for men 
 can give themselves beauty airs as well as women.
 
 12 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 His dress seemed to be a decided protest against 
 the rule that bids one do at Eome as Komans 
 do. He had a plaid shawl wrapped around his 
 shoulders over his grey shooting jacket, not- 
 withstanding the season, an extra broad-leaved 
 straw hat, trousers such as those which the cari- 
 caturists in Punch used always to attribute to 
 Lord Brougham, and thick shoes with buff cloth 
 gaiters over them. And over all this costume 
 there was a spick-and-span cleanness and new- 
 ness that, joined to his clear eye and cheery 
 look, seemed almost to deserve the epithet of 
 brightness. 
 
 " What, you here, Signorina Lucia ! Come to 
 see the show, and go in for a share in the bene- 
 diction, eh ! " said the new arrival, in that 
 language so wonderfully spoken by old Anglo- 
 Italians, and so yet more wonderfully understood 
 by the quick wits and ears of the Italians trained 
 by long use to acquaintance with the peculiari- 
 ties of Anglo-Italian speech. 
 
 " Sissignore I One sees that even your worship 
 does not keep the studio open to-day." 
 
 " Of course not. I must see the sight as well 
 as the rest. But I mean to go into the church, 
 and to look at the folk streaming in ; I had better 
 be going at once. All alone, eh? — that is, I
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 13 
 
 mean, so — no cavaliere, eh ? " he added, glancing 
 at Ninetta as he spoke. " Not seen Carlo, eh ? " 
 
 " Carlo will be here presently ; he promised to 
 meet us here," replied Lucia, with an open-eyed 
 straight look into the speaker's eyes, which 
 seemed to protest against any possible idea that 
 she was meeting her lover on the sly, or was 
 ashamed of doing so, or wanted to conceal the 
 fact from anybody. 
 
 " Oh, he will — will he ? Well I suppose that 
 I shall see you to-morrow, and perhaps him too. 
 A rivederci. And so saying, he walked alertly 
 across the piazza towards the great steps leading 
 to the church. 
 
 " Why, who in the world is he ? " asked 
 Ninetta, who had been staring at Lucia's 
 acquaintance with open-eyed wonder. " What 
 a very strange-looking man ! And how queerly 
 he talks ! He must be one of those wonderful 
 Milordi Inglesi, that they say are all so rich, 
 and all mad. And I suppose you must have 
 met with him at some of the studios." 
 
 "Eun uomo bizzarro quanto mai ! — Yes, he 
 is an odd fish, if ever there was one," said Lucia ; 
 " but he is not an Englishman. He is an 
 American, which comes to much the same thing 
 it seems. Only they are a new sort discovered
 
 14 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 quite recently ; and a very good thing too. For 
 I am sure we want them." 
 
 " Where were they found ? " asked Ninetta 
 with much interest. 
 
 " Oh, somewhere over the sea. In an island 
 I suppose. Some of our sailors were sailing 
 about, looking for coral most likely, and found 
 them. And, as I say, a very good thing too, if 
 what I hear old folk say is true, that the Milordi 
 Inglesi have spent nearly all their money, and 
 have not nearly so much as they used to have. 
 This fresh sort always have plenty. I never 
 join in the talk you hear nowadays against the 
 saints. I think the Madonna is very good to 
 us ! And when these Americans have spent all 
 their money, I have no fear that some other 
 Inglesi will be discovered somewhere about, if 
 we are faithful to the Holy Father, and mind 
 what the priests tell us." 
 
 " I like Frenchmen best for my part," said 
 Ninetta. 
 
 " It is quite a different thing," returned Lucia 
 thoughtfully. " I don't see that Frenchmen 
 are a bit better than we are ourselves, for that 
 matter." 
 
 " Why, you don't mean to say, Lucia, that 
 these Inglesi and Americani are any better than
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 15 
 
 we are ? — why, they are barbari ! " exclaimed 
 Ninetta with much indignation. 
 
 " Yes ; they are barbari I there is no doubt 
 about that ! " said Lucia, whose brain was evi- 
 dently at work ; " but somehow they are of a 
 different sort. And somehow everybody seems 
 to expect that an Englishman, or one of these 
 new sort of English, the Americans, should be 
 able to do things which we can't do. And see 
 now, I don't know how it is, but I myself would 
 believe what one of them said to me, more than 
 I would what any of our people said. Now this 
 Signore Chianquinsi" (the name that Lucetta thus 
 did her best to translate into sounds pronounce- 
 able by Italian organs was Jenkins), " I can't tell 
 
 you how good he is, and Oh ! there is Carlo ! 
 
 I see him pushing his way through the crowd ; 
 and there is Uncle Tancredi with him ; and 
 cousin Nanni and little Clelia Braschi behind 
 them. I dare say Carlo was kept waiting in 
 order to come with Uncle Tancredi." 
 
 " But, Lucia, dear, I never saw your uncle ; 
 he won't be displeased at my being with you, 
 will he ? " said Ninetta. 
 
 " Displeased ! no : why should he be dis- 
 pleased ? " said Lucia with genuine surprise. 
 
 " Only if you are all together, a family
 
 16 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 party, you know, he might not like to find a 
 
 stranger " 
 
 " Che I vi pare ! Not a bit of it; don't imagine 
 such a thing. Here they come. I am sure you 
 will like Uncle Tancredi, he is such a good, kind 
 man," said Lucia, whose eyes were sparkling 
 with pleasure at the prospect of the meeting 
 with her friends, somewhat more dancingly and 
 joyously perhaps than was altogether due to the 
 approach of Uncle Tancredi, genuine as had been 
 Lucia's eulogy of him.
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 17 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 Though it was not yet six o'clock, the vast 
 circular area enclosed by Bernini's celebrated 
 colonnades had been filling so rapidly since 
 the two girls had taken up their position at 
 the foot of the last of its huge piers on the 
 southern side, that Tancredi and the little party 
 with him had some difficulty in making their 
 way through the throng to the place where the 
 two girls were. They had not to seek them ; 
 for it was evident that the rendezvous had been 
 arranged beforehand. Nor, though some little 
 patience was needed to thread the crowd, was 
 the piazza yet packed nearly as closely as it 
 would be an hour later, when the time for the 
 appearance of the procession should approach. 
 An Italian crowd is always the gentlest crowd 
 in the world, so far as good-humour and the 
 absence of all violence goes. But it is not 
 an easy crowd to move through, for the same 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 reason that it is not easy to traverse a herd of 
 bullocks. No Italian dreams of moving out of 
 the way of any one wishing to pass him. He 
 stands quiescent. Motion is an evil. Why 
 should he subject himself to this evil, merely 
 to facilitate the movement of a stranger ? If 
 the passenger must needs move on at once, let 
 him accept the onus of moving round the ob- 
 stacle. If the burly bulk which stops his way 
 bring him also to a standstill, why it is only so 
 much benefit conferred on him ! And no Italian 
 expects another to move out of his way. And 
 accordingly Uncle- Tancredi and his party 
 threaded their devious way through the crowd 
 to the pillar where the girls were now standing, 
 having risen to their feet at the approach of 
 their friends, slowly and perfectly patiently. 
 
 Yet Tancredi Melitta, to say nothing of the 
 two young men who followed behind him, 
 looked like one who would have had little 
 difficulty in shoving any shoulders aside, how- 
 ever little mobile they might be. Lucia's 
 mother, who had died so few years after her 
 daughter's birth that the latter had no remem- 
 brance of her, had been a sister of Tancredi 
 Melitta, who was a buttero of the Campagna, as 
 his father had been before him, and as he hoped
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 19 
 
 his son Nanni would be after him. And when 
 his sister Drusilla had married, with the re- 
 luctant consent of her family, the Roman citizen 
 and cameo-cutter, Alessandro Savelli, each party 
 to the match had been equally persuaded that 
 they were making a mesalliance. An outsider, 
 who had no Roman prejudices or ideas of one 
 sort or the other to blind him, would probably 
 have thought that the countryman's opinion on 
 the subject was the more reasonable of the two. 
 If the reader has ever visited Rome, he has 
 seen and admired many a buttero — a character- 
 istic figure in the Roman streets, quite unlike 
 any other figure to be met with in any other 
 part of the world. Do you not remember, 
 reader, having been struck (in the Campo Yac- 
 cino, perhaps, or in the open space between the 
 Lateran and the neighbouring city gate) by a 
 stalwart yet spare figure riding an exceptionally 
 good black horse, with a long flowing tail down 
 to his heels. The rider sits his steed admirably 
 with a seat rather of the military sort than of 
 our country kind, not rising in his stirrups, but 
 moving easily with the brisk, active amble of 
 his steed, as if they were but one animal, moved 
 by one and the same will. And it may well be 
 so, for the buttero lives mainly in the saddle.
 
 20 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 He it is to whom is entrusted the supervision of 
 all the horses and horned cattle on some one of 
 the vast properties which stretch over the Eoman 
 Campagna. He has men under him for the 
 care of the horses, others for the horned cattle. 
 The sheep and the pigs are under other and 
 recognisedly inferior administrations. But with 
 the cultivation of the land, such as there is of it, 
 he has nothing to do. This is managed exclu- 
 sively by a fattore, whom the buttero, and indeed 
 everybody else, considers to occupy a very 
 inferior position to himself. On a large pro- 
 perty the buttero would have three saddle-horses 
 kept for him, and would take their work out of 
 them every day of the week. One would be 
 ready for him to mount at sunrise, a second 
 after the midday meal, while the third would 
 afford one day's rest in three to the stud. 
 Besides his twenty crowns a month, not a calf 
 or a colt is sold on the property without a fee 
 of a crown to the buttero ; all the ashes of the 
 large fires used for many purposes on the land 
 are his perquisite, and a more valuable one than 
 might be supposed. And sundry other rights, 
 customs, and fees make the buttero s position a 
 very fortunate one. But he is well worth his 
 earnings. It is not every man who has such
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 21 
 
 an eye for the points of a horse or a heifer, or 
 such a knowledge of their habits in health and 
 sickness, as is needed to fit him for his business. 
 The well-to-do buttero therefore rides his hand- 
 some and spirited horse with a somewhat cava- 
 lier and slightly aggressive air and bearing in 
 the streets of Rome, and sticks his steeple- 
 crowned beaver, with its cock's feather in it, 
 jauntily on one side of his head, and sits in the 
 saddle with one hand on the waistband of his 
 closely fitting black leather breeches ; while his 
 well-made legs, clad in leather leggings, made 
 to fit them like his skin, and buckled with a 
 profusion of straps and buckles, hang as only 
 legs more accustomed to the saddle than to 
 walking can hang. 
 
 Such was Tancredi Melitta the buttero, the 
 present head of a family who had filled the same 
 position from father to son for many generations 
 on the same property ; not one of the largest on 
 the Campagna, but one of sufficient extent to 
 make him a very well-to-do man. He was per- 
 fectly honest ; well-informed as to the things 
 necessary to be known for the satisfactory dis- 
 charge of his own functions ; utterly, nay 
 wonderfully, ignorant of all in the world 
 besides ; entirely convinced that what he did
 
 22 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 know comprised the sum and substance of all 
 human knowledge ; and that all who were not 
 acquainted with that were uneducated block- 
 heads, and all who pretended to know anything 
 else impostors and charlatans. 
 
 And such as was Tancredi Melitta the father, 
 and buttero in presently such was Giovanni, 
 familiarly Nanni Melitta, the son and buttero in 
 futuro. 
 
 Nanni Melitta was really a very handsome 
 fellow, though there was a dash of barbarism 
 about him — about the carriage of his person, 
 the style of his garments, and the expression of 
 his face — which would not have been observed 
 in a Lombard or a Tuscan of similar social 
 position. Perhaps this did not in any degree 
 militate against his claim to be considered a 
 handsome fellow, as certainly it increased his 
 right to be deemed a picturesque one. The 
 latter point of view was of course an impossible 
 one to the girls before whom he was about to 
 present himself. But it may be safely assumed 
 that had that same flavour of barbarism been 
 absent from his appearance he would have 
 seemed less admirable in their eyes. 
 
 It would have been too much, perhaps, to 
 expect that it should have been altogether
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 23 
 
 indifferent to Nanni whether he appeared 
 admirable in the eyes of his handsome cousin 
 Lucia, and of her, perhaps, even more attractive 
 friend, whom he then saw for the first time, or 
 not ; but we may be quite sure that little Clelia 
 Braschi, who accompanied him and his father, 
 if consulted on the point, would have been found 
 to hold very strongly the opinion that it ought 
 not to have mattered a fig to Nanni what any 
 girl might think of him save one. 
 
 And that one was very well calculated to 
 convert a young fellow to the opinion of the 
 holders of it. Clelia Braschi, the daughter of a 
 capo-cavallaro * on the tenuta (or estate) next to 
 that under the superintendence of Melitta, was as 
 pretty and bright a little contadina as eyes could 
 wish to look on. She was not so tall as either 
 of the other two girls ; and had no pretensions 
 to beauty of the same high order as belonged, 
 though in such different styles, to both Lucia 
 and Ninetta. Her bright and laughing black 
 eyes had neither the magnificence of size, 
 and apparently unfathomable pellucid depth, 
 which make such eyes as those of Lucia — im- 
 postors as they often are — suggestive of inten- 
 
 * The superintendent of the horses on a tenuta, or estate, 
 under the buttero.
 
 24 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 sity of thought and feeling ; nor had they in 
 them the promise of illimitable capacities of 
 emotion and passion, which, with a certain ap- 
 pealing melancholy of gaze, fired the male 
 beholder who ventured to let his own glances 
 rest on the large, slowly moving blue eyes of 
 Ninetta. And Clelia's attractiveness of features 
 wa- of a different kind from that of either of the 
 two other girls. Hers was the beauty of a dark 
 brunette, of the sort called piquante: a little 
 triangular face with a sharp and finely cut little 
 nose and a pointed chin. She was probably yet 
 more ignorant of all things in the world, save 
 those immediately around her daily life, than 
 either Lucia or Ninetta ; yet a judge of such 
 matters would perhaps have expected to find 
 more of native power of intelligence in Clelia 
 than in either of the others. For the rest, 
 though she looked bright and smart in the best 
 holiday array of a contadina, her garments were 
 not so fashioned as to set off the graces of her 
 person to such an advantage as those of either 
 of the town-bred girls. Lucia also wore the 
 costume of a peasant ; but on her it looked as if 
 it had been made and as if she wore it as a 
 costume got up and put on for the assumption 
 of a picturesque character ; whereas Clelia wore
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 25 
 
 hers as one wears the garb that one has lived 
 in all one's life. Ninetta's dress, on the other 
 hand, though characterised by evident poverty, 
 was coquettishly made and coquettishly worn, 
 after the fashion of the city. 
 
 There still remains one person of the group 
 advancing through the crowd to the pier at 
 the foot of which the two girls were standing, 
 to be introduced to the reader. The latter 
 already knows that this was " Carlo," for 
 though the slower and less partial narrator 
 has left him till the last, Lucia had at once 
 become conscious of his presence, and had with 
 characteristic frankness left nobody in any 
 doubt as to the relationship existing between 
 herself and her " damoT Any one accustomed 
 to Rome and Eoman things and ways would 
 at once have known Carlo Carena's calling and 
 position in life from his habiliments ; — for he 
 was too poor a man, by far, to possess a 
 different costume for high days and holidays. 
 Carlo was a sculptor's workman. It was his 
 business to chisel the marble in the forms 
 conceived and modelled by the sculptor, whose 
 brain indeed is the birth-place of the shapes 
 that are to be immortal ; but whose hand, for 
 the most part, has to contend with no more
 
 26 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 rebellious subject-matter than plastic clay. And 
 it will be perceived at once that, great as is 
 the distance that separates the master artist 
 from the mere carver of tombstone figures, 
 the difference between one of the workmen to 
 whom the task of reducing the marble to the 
 shape desired by the sculptor is entrusted and 
 another of the class may be fully as great. It 
 will also be easily understood that the fate and 
 fortunes of those employed as Carlo Carena was 
 employed, depend largely upon chance. It is 
 one thing to be the slave of the chisel to the 
 artist whose every new work makes an epoch 
 in the artistic history of the time ; and another 
 to do the same office for the dullard, whose 
 most ambitious effort may perhaps succeed in 
 recording the virtues and features of a cotton 
 lord, or a shoddy millionaire. It is also one 
 thing to work in this capacity for a noble- 
 minded and generous-hearted man, and a very 
 different one to perform a similar service for 
 a mean-souled and jealous one. 
 
 Whether it was that Carlo Carena was an 
 incapable workman, or an idle and careless 
 one, or whether it was that he had hitherto 
 been an unfortunate one, it was tolerably 
 evident that he was not a prosperous one. He
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 27 
 
 was not wearing absolutely the same dress that 
 he worked in at the marble every day. But 
 it was the same in kind — a light-coloured linen 
 blouse, and trousers of a similar material. The 
 only attempt to turn his simple costume into 
 a holiday suit, consisted of the addition of a 
 scarlet sash, which bound the blouse around 
 the waist, and a flat scarlet cap, the bulging 
 circumference of which spread out in such a 
 way as to form some protection to the eyes and 
 face against the sun, and to render it a by no 
 means unpicturesque covering for the head. 
 But whatever else Carlo had got, or had failed 
 to get for himself in the great world-com- 
 petition for existence, he had gained, and knew 
 very well that he had gained, the whole heart 
 of a girl whose favour half Rome would have 
 been well disposed to dispute with him if dis- 
 puting could have done any good in the matter. 
 But both Lucia and Carlo knew that dispute 
 the matter who might, they two meant to 
 belong to each other, and to be true to each 
 other for weal or for woe, and to fight the 
 world together. And when Ninetta had an- 
 swered Lucia's little bit of espieglerie with the 
 assurance that she should not have the least 
 fear of introducing her lover, the grand French
 
 28 A FAMILY PABTY IN THE 
 
 captain, to her, Lucia might have retorted that 
 she was giving proof that she had no sort of 
 misgiving in bringing her lover and Ninetta 
 together. Not that she was at all insensible to 
 the fact that Ninetta was a very remarkably 
 lovely girl, or that it had ever occurred to her 
 to think of measuring her own attractions 
 against those of her friend. But it never could 
 have come into her head that there was any 
 possibility of Carlo being otherwise than true 
 to her, or of her being otherwise than true to 
 him. Her nature was too simple and straight- 
 forward a one for any such doubts. She had 
 never sought to tease her lover with coquetries 
 or jealousies either real or feigned ; had told 
 him frankly that she returned his love, when 
 he had confided his to her ; and to her thinking 
 there was no more to be said about it — much 
 more to be said of their mutual love — but 
 nothing more as to the recognized fact that he 
 belonged to her, and she to him for evermore. 
 
 Which was the handsomer man, Nanni 
 Melitta or Carlo Carena ? It is a difficult 
 question. An artist brought to perform the 
 office of Paris would have admitted that it 
 was a very difficult question. Yet they were 
 as dissimilar as two young men could well be ;
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 29 
 
 and probably every girl to whom the question 
 could have been put, would have been at no 
 loss to give a decided reply in one sense or the 
 other. But there would probably have been 
 as many votes one way as the other. Lucia's 
 opinion of course was a very decided one, but 
 ought not to count for anything. Clelia Braschi's 
 little mind, too, was quite made up on the sub- 
 ject as soon as ever she saw the young sculptor. 
 But neither can we admit her decision to have 
 any weight in settling the question. Ninetta 
 was free to form an unprejudiced opinion on 
 the subject ; and anybody might have betted 
 that she would have given the preference in 
 her mind to the young artist ; but the fact was 
 just the reverse. Again, if like be attracted 
 to like, it might have been supposed that Lucia 
 would have been more likely to fall in love 
 with such a man as her cousin Nanni than with 
 Carena. She had not done so. And though 
 her opinion must now be considered as a fore- 
 gone conclusion, yet she had known Nanni 
 before she had known Carlo, and might have 
 fallen in love with him — but did not ; and did 
 fall in love very desperately with the sculptor. 
 Certainly it was not a case of like to like. 
 There was none of the exuberant vitality, none
 
 30 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 of the especially Roman characteristic of majestic 
 largeness of development, about Carlo Carena, 
 as so remarkably distinguished Lucia Savelli, 
 and was also strikingly observable in her cousin 
 Nanni Melitta. In one word, the animal nature 
 was less vigorous, the intellectual nature more 
 vigorous, in Carlo than in the others. Not 
 that he was otherwise than a well-grown and 
 handsomely developed young man. But he 
 looked as if Nanni Melitta could have taken 
 him round the waist and squeezed the life out 
 of him easily. He was not an unhealthy look- 
 ing but a delicately formed man, with a head 
 set on his shoulders with the grace and beauty 
 in the lines of the nape of the neck of an 
 Apollo Belvedere. The beauty of the head and 
 face, too, were of a totally different character 
 from those of Nanni, who might have seemed 
 a man of another race. Instead of being ruddy 
 brown, he was delicately pale, and there was 
 about the form of his cheeks and chin a look 
 which, to tell the truth, seemed to speak of 
 insufficient nourishment. But the mouth, eyes, 
 and forehead were eminently handsome ; the 
 first sweet with unmistakable gentleness and 
 goodness ; the second large, blue, and full of 
 intelligence ; the latter truly noble, both large
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 31 
 
 and lofty ; very fair, but with the unmistakable 
 stamp of mental power in the outlines and 
 expression of it. 
 
 If Lucia had been asked, or if she had ever 
 asked herself — which doubtless she never had — 
 ivhy she loved Carlo Carena, she would probably 
 have been much puzzled to find an answer. It 
 certainly was not because he looked so clever. 
 And I am disposed to think, that the sweet 
 mouth had more to do with it than the 
 noble forehead, or intellectual-looking eyes. 
 Partly, too, I suspect that a certain strain of 
 that feeling, which arises in the breast of a 
 protector towards one protected, mingled in the 
 the yarn of Lucia's emotions. It will be seen 
 presently by virtue of what circumstances such 
 a feeling may have been generated. It was in 
 no way derogatory to Carlo's manhood, or to 
 Lucia's maidenhood. But so it was, that fortune 
 had put it in Lucia's power to be eminently 
 useful to Carlo's fortunes. 
 
 And now that the reader is in possession of 
 the " carte du pays" he may be allowed to make 
 further acquaintance with all the members of 
 the party.
 
 32 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " Brava Jigliuola mia!" said Tancredi Melitta, 
 as he came up to the spot where the girls were 
 standing. " I said I'd lay a wager you were 
 first at the trysting-place. Carlo, here, wanted 
 to run round to the house in the Borgo 
 Angelico to see if you were there, and bring 
 you to the piazza. But I knew better. ' Let's go 
 straight to the place she told us,' I said ; ' for 
 it's a thousand to one she is there before us.' ' : 
 
 "You were right this time, uncle. I .took 
 care to be early, to make sure of a good place. 
 This is my friend, Ninetta Innocenti, uncle, 
 and cousin Nanni. She works in pearls in the 
 shop of Signor Angelo Lucidi in the Yia.della 
 Eipetta. Signor Carlo, I present you to my 
 friend la Ninetta Innocenti ! " (The last words 
 were said with a laugh in the eyes, and a little 
 mock air of ceremony.) " How do you do,
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 33 
 
 Clelia ? Aren't we in luck to have such a 
 lovely morning for the festa ? " 
 
 Clelia tried to say something in reply ; but only 
 succeeded in blushing and giggling. For the 
 fact of being in Rome, and in the company of 
 these city ladies, especially of Ninetta, who was 
 a stranger and wore the costume of the borghesia, 
 oppressed the little contadina with a fit of 
 shyness. 
 
 " I suppose you have seen these fine things 
 before now, Jigliuola mia f " said Tancredi, 
 addressing himself to Ninetta, and looking at 
 her with evident admiration. 
 
 " Sissignore ! " said Ninetta, casting down her 
 eyes beneath the butter os gaze. " I saw the 
 procession last year, but not in such a good 
 place as this. And then 1 was all by my- 
 self, too ; and a holiday taken that way is not 
 worth much, is it Lucia ? This time it is some- 
 thing like a holiday ! " 
 
 " / have seen one once before ! " put in Clelia, 
 just beginning to find her tongue, and proud to 
 be able to bring her experience to bear upon the 
 subject in hand ; " and I remember it quite 
 well. It was the year Santa Dei and Cecco 
 Rossi were married, and babbo brought mother 
 and me into Rome to see the procession ; but I 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 don't think it was so fine a one as this," added 
 Clelia, feeling it to be good manners towards 
 her companions to assume that the coming show 
 must be superior to all others. 
 
 " Oh, no, of course not," said Ninetta ; 
 " nothing like so grand ! " 
 
 " Why, how do you know, Ninetta ? I 
 thought it was always the same every year ? " 
 said Lucia, with matter-of-fact simplicity. 
 
 " Not at all the same," returned Ninetta ; 
 " there might be the Holy Father and the Mon- 
 signori all the same ; but what la Clelia is 
 thinking of is, that a certain giovinotto who is 
 here now was not of the party then." 
 
 At this masterpiece of delicate raillery, both 
 Nanni and Clelia blushed furiously, and Nanni 
 to the full as much as Clelia. Had he been an 
 artizan of the city it would have been otherwise ; 
 and it was only Clelia who was able to find 
 words to make head against the attack. 
 
 " I am sure that one giovinotto more or less 
 does not make much difference. There are 
 always plenty of them, and more than enough, 
 /think." 
 
 This was Nanni's punishment for not having 
 a word to say for himself, and leaving all the 
 burthen of carrying on the defence upon her.
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 35 
 
 Meanwhile Lucia and Carlo had been saying 
 a few words to each other apart, in a manner 
 that showed that any attempted raillery on their 
 relations to each other would have been entirely 
 thrown away. 
 
 " He was here not half an hour before you 
 came," said Lucia. 
 
 " Here ! What, Signor Chianquinsi here 
 with you ? " returned Carlo. 
 
 " Yes. That is, he spoke to me, seeing me 
 here. He was going into the church to see the 
 funzioni. He spoke of you, before I had said a 
 word about you. I told him that I thought he 
 would see you to-morrow," said Lucia. 
 
 " No ! did you though ? That was a bold 
 stroke. And you did not wait to find out 
 whether I would go to him or no ? But you 
 knew very well that I should do what you told 
 me to do, tesoro mio" returned Carlo, looking 
 fondly into her face. 
 
 " Well, I thought that you would not let so 
 good a chance slip. And then, certainly, I 
 figured to myself that you would not find it 
 disagreeable to be in the same workshop with 
 
 somebody that you are very likely to find 
 
 with il Signor Chianquinsi," rejoined Lucia, 
 shyly taking Carlo's hand in hers, as they stood 
 side by side.
 
 36 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 " Anima mia I " murmured the young man, 
 stooping his head over that of Lucia, till his lips 
 came so near to her forehead that it was almost 
 impossible to him to resist the magnetic force of 
 attraction, while Lucia, perfectly aware somehow 
 or other of what was taking place over her head, 
 though she could not see it, gently moved her 
 head, the least bit in the world, and whispered, 
 " Take care ! " 
 
 " But, darling," continued the young sculp- 
 tor, obeying Lucia's hint so far as to bring his 
 face down to the level of hers, and keep it 
 at the respectful distance of some six inches, 
 " I think — that is, I am afraid, that you don't 
 quite understand. You are so good, and so 
 single-minded, my own Lucia. Don't you see 
 
 that " And Carlo paused as if he had 
 
 a difficulty in finding the right words to say 
 what he wished to say. 
 
 " See what, Carlo ? " said the girl, looking up 
 into his face with open-eyed and unaffected sur- 
 prise. " Surely it would be a good thing for 
 you, if only to get away from that horrid Morel. 
 I don't know what you mean, indeed I don't." 
 
 " No, dearest, I know you don't ; and I hate 
 to have to tell you, you are so good and in- 
 nocent. But there ! Don't you see that this
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 37 
 
 Signor Americano with the wonderful barbarous 
 name — that he has eyes enough to know that 
 his model is the handsomest girl in Rome — 
 small blame to him for that, for he could not 
 help seeing it — but that he would give his ears 
 to steal a little bit of that love which the model 
 has given the whole of to a poor workman," 
 said Carlo, with his eyes on the ground, and 
 not venturing to look into his mistress's face to 
 see the effect of his words. Had he looked, he 
 would have seen the whole of Lucia's face 
 and neck covered with a dark crimson blush, 
 which was not one of pleasure, or still less of 
 gratified vanity. 
 
 " Oh, Carlo ! you must not say that ; and 
 you must not think it. I assure you that you 
 are doing a great injustice to Signor Chian- 
 quinsi — believe me, you are. Why, do you think 
 he does not know that we love each other ? 
 Do you think I took any pains to prevent him 
 from knowing that ? " 
 
 " No, darling, I am sure you did not. You 
 are too good and too pure-minded. But this 
 Americano — all the same for that — they think 
 that money can do anything with poor people, 
 who have so little of it. Tell me now truly — 
 but that I am sure you will if you tell me at all
 
 38 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 — tell me, do you really believe that lie does 
 not very specially admire you ? Do not you 
 know that, all the time you are in his studio, 
 he is thinking of you and not of the work he is 
 modelling ? " 
 
 " I can tell you this for certain, Carlo — that 
 he never in all his life said a single word, nor 
 half a word, that an honest good girl who loves 
 another man ought not to hear. Besides, do 
 you think that if he meant anything wrong, 
 there would be the least chance of his accepting 
 you as his workman ? Would he want to have 
 somebody always at hand who would make his 
 life not worth twenty-four hours' purchase if he 
 so much as looked at me offensively ? — would 
 that be his game, do you think, if he meant 
 what was wrong ? " 
 
 " It would be a very losing game, if he did," 
 said Carlo, with a dangerous look in his eyes. 
 " But, how does he know that ? I have seen 
 him look at you, and heard him speak to you ; 
 and nothing shall persuade me that he does not 
 — well — that he would not fain amor eg glare a 
 little with you. Perhaps he thinks to propitiate 
 you by taking me into his studio." 
 
 " Well, there never was such an unreasonable 
 fellow as you are. You think that because some-
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 39 
 
 how or other you had the misfortune to fall in 
 love with me, all the other men in the world must 
 do the same." And while this was being said a 
 hand stole out from Lucia's side, under cover 
 of her apron, and found its way into Carlo's 
 palm, which forthwith closed upon it. " But, 
 at all events," continued Lucia, " since one 
 must humour you gentlemen by looking at a 
 matter from your own point of view, supposing 
 Signor Chianquinsi to have any such notions in 
 his head as you suspect him of, would it not be 
 best for me to have some one, willing and able 
 to take care of me ? I think I see Signor Chian- 
 quinsi, or any other Inglese or Americano 
 saying a word more than is civil to me when you 
 are there ! Altro die four and twenty hours ! 
 Four and twenty seconds would be nearer the 
 reckoning. Don't you see, Carlo, that the more 
 you suspect him of meaning wrong, the more 
 you ought to try to get a footing in his studio ? " 
 argued Lucia, mixing her reasoning with flat- 
 tery acording to the never-failing receipt of her 
 sex. 
 
 " Any way it comes in the end to what I 
 started from in the beginning, anirna mia, that 
 I shall have to do whatever you choose that 
 I should do. So you have settled that I am to
 
 40 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 go to this Americano to-morrow. And how do 
 we know that he will have me, even if I make 
 up my mind to work for him ? " 
 
 " My opinion is that he will," said Lucia, 
 with a kind of tone that seemed to her lover's 
 sensitive ear to imply a consciousness that she 
 had a power in the matter, which brought a 
 sudden flush and frown to his brow. But he 
 chased the feeling from him, with a touch of 
 anger against himself, caused by his perfect 
 conviction that the idea in his mind was an 
 unworthy one, and did wrong to his Lucia and 
 her true-hearted affection. 
 
 " First," continued Lucia, " because I think 
 he is artist enough to know that he will be 
 securing a first-rate workman ; and secondly, 
 because he has quarrelled with the man he has 
 at present. And then," continued she, hurrying 
 on to another argument, which in truth made 
 the main motive of her own desire for the 
 arrangement in question, " won't it be a great 
 thing for you, mio povero Carlo, to be quit of 
 that spiteful, mean, jealous animal of a French- 
 man, Morel ? Won't you be glad to tell him 
 he may look for another hand to put his 
 sciocchezze into marble ? Won't you now, tesoro 
 mio f
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 41 
 
 " You dearest and best of darlings ! " said 
 Carlo, the tears of tenderness gathering in his 
 eyes as he gazed on her, " yes, it will be a glad 
 day when I can do that. How well you know 
 me, my Lucia. Well then, it is settled that I 
 am to come to the Chianquinsi studio to-morrow. 
 But I am horribly jealous of the Americano all 
 the same, you know. What o'clock had I 
 better come ? " 
 
 " There never was anybody that talked such 
 nonsense as you do, Carlo. But, like other 
 people, you will find out your mistake in time, 
 that's one comfort. Oh ! you can't be too early 
 for Signor Chianquinsi. He comes to his 
 studio soon after it is daylight. Come at six 
 o'clock ; and then there will be time to settle 
 everything, ready for you to tell Signor Morel, 
 when he comes to his studio, that you don't 
 mean to do another stroke of the chisel for him." 
 
 " Yes, I shan't be sorry to be able to tell him 
 that, I confess. And that will be all owing to 
 my Lucia. Well, I will be in the Yia Margutta 
 by six to-morrow morning. And now, tesoro 
 mio, tell me something about yourself. How 
 go matters in the Borgo Angelico ? " 
 
 " Ah ! don't ask me, Carlo ; there is nothing 
 pleasant to tell, and no good to be got out of
 
 42 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 talking about it," said Lucia, while a change 
 came over, not her face only, but, as one might 
 have almost fancied, over her whole person ; 
 so great was the contrast between the elastic 
 springy firmness that seemed to belong to the 
 girl, and to be the natural characteristic of her 
 vigorous organization, as long as she had been 
 talking about Carlo's interests, and the sort of 
 limp depressed helplessness that became the ex- 
 pression of it when her own home affairs were 
 alluded to. The words came from her so reluc- 
 tantly, and she was so desirous of escaping from 
 the subject as quickly as possible — not because 
 there was anything to conceal from Carlo, for 
 all there was to be told had been talked over 
 between them often enough, but simply because 
 it was, as she said, both painful and useless to 
 speak of it — that it will perhaps be best to tell 
 shortly, in our own words, how matters stood 
 with Lucia in the home in the Borgo Angelico.
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Lucia Sayelli was the only child of Alessandro 
 Savelli and Drusilla Melitta, the latter of whom 
 died, fortunately for her, when her daughter was 
 only five years old. The reader already knows 
 who Drusilla was. Alessandro Savelli was a 
 Roman citizen, and, as he insisted on calling 
 himself, " an artist," being in his own estima- 
 tion immeasurably lifted above all the rest of 
 the world by either of these qualities, and in a 
 still greater degree above all who were Romans 
 but not artists, and all who were artists but not 
 Romans, by the combination of both of them. 
 He was, in fact, a cameo-cutter, as his father 
 had been before him. And there have been, 
 and are cutters of cameos, who have been and 
 are artists in the truest sense of the term. But 
 there are certain incompatibilities in the way, 
 which are apt to impede a lazy, vain-glorious, 
 utterly self-indulgent, and indolent vagabond
 
 44 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 in his pursuit of high art. And these impedi- 
 ments, representing themselves to the vaga- 
 bond's own imagination under the guise of 
 "persecution of fortune," "jealousy of contem- 
 poraries," " conspiracy of the mediocrities to 
 keep down genius," and " general decadence 
 of the world," had reduced the " Eoman artist " 
 to a wretched incompetent mechanic, miserably 
 paid for his slovenly work when employed at 
 all, and more usually unable to earn a crust 
 by his profession. He would have told you, 
 as he told himself and anybody else who would 
 listen to him, that he was always ready and 
 anxious to earn his subsistence and that of his 
 family by utilizing his talents in any manner 
 that was not " derogatory " to his social posi- 
 tion and his birth ; the high requirements of 
 the latter being testified to by an ancient yellow 
 and very dirty parchment scroll, which was 
 suspended against the wall of the den he called 
 his home. This palladium bore a long list of 
 names, each surmounted by a carefully painted 
 coronet, and an extra dirty mahogany-coloured 
 thumb mark near the foot of it, where " Ales- 
 sandro, born in 1824," was shown to be the 
 son of Pietro, and the grandson of another 
 Alessandro, whose brother had been " Prelato
 
 PIAZZA OF ST PETER. 45 
 
 Domestico " to the Holy Father. Now the 
 special effect of this document was to forbid, 
 as by an unalterable law of nature, that any 
 human being mentioned in it should ever em- 
 ploy himself on any occupation which involved 
 anything in the shape of muscular exertion, 
 even if starvation were to result from obedi- 
 ence to the prohibition. It permitted a Savelli 
 to hang about the doors of churches, or of 
 hotels, in the hope of picking up a franc or 
 two from some of the barbari, who might wish 
 for information of the kind which may be openly 
 asked for, or for communications of a more con- 
 fidential character. But it was peremptory 
 against his shouldering a trunk. It made no 
 objection to his clothing his shirtless person in 
 an indescribably filthy and greasy frock-coat ; 
 but would have marked him with infamy for 
 adopting a decent fustian jacket. It recognized 
 no line of demarcation between accepting a fee 
 for such " cicerone " services as those above 
 mentioned, and direct unblushing begging ; 
 but was clear against blacking a pair of boots. 
 Lastly, it by no means forbad a Savelli to 
 speculate on the profit that the beauty of a 
 daughter " of the house " might in any way 
 be made to yield. Such were the singular, but
 
 46 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 perfectly well understood laws of the " Savellian 
 Tables ; " and Alessandro, the noble Roman 
 artist, acted up to them in the spirit of a 
 martyr. 
 
 His sister, the widow Orsola Tortorelli, nata 
 Savelli, who lived with him, was also a worthy 
 daughter of the house, and obedient disciple of 
 the mystic parchment scroll, whereon she also 
 was duly inscribed. Her husband had been 
 " archivista " in the household of a cardinal, an 
 employment the undoubted gentility of which 
 held duly accurate proportion to the exceeding 
 lightness of its duties. But as the remuneration 
 followed the same law of proportion, Orsola, 
 nata Savelli, fortunately childless, was left, 
 when the " archivist " died, utterly penniless. 
 She had thereupon signified to her brother 
 Alessandro, that it was necessary that she 
 should come and live with him and his mother- 
 less daughter. Alessandro made no objection 
 to the arrangement. Space in those days — it 
 is another matter now — was an abundant and 
 by no means costly article. There was abun- 
 dance of it in the garret he occupied in the 
 Borgo Angelico. The archivist's widow pos- 
 sessed a bed. She might bring it to the home 
 in the Borgo Angelico and welcome. Certainly
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 47 
 
 it would be convenient to have somebody to 
 look after the child. And as to housekeep- 
 ing, Alessandro knew very well that if he 
 had but the price of a dinner in his pocket, 
 nothing need bind him to carry any portion 
 of it from the " trattoria " to the Borgo An- 
 gelico. Orsola would no doubt find the means 
 of keeping body and soul together somehow ; 
 women always did. And probably she would 
 not let little Lucia quite die of hunger either. 
 
 Thus the family at the home in the Borgo 
 Angelico consisted of the father, daughter, and 
 aunt. And a miserable " home " it was as 
 ever a young creature grew up in. Miserable 
 it had been during all the days of Lucia's child- 
 hood ; miserable, that is, as far as material 
 misery could make it so. But that was perhaps 
 not altogether so far as would seem to be neces- 
 sarily the case to the ideas of people native to 
 the northern side of the Alps. In the first 
 place, the child-life of the little Lucia was 
 almost wholly a life in the open air ; and that 
 air the air of Rome. In the next place, it was 
 passed very much according to her own fancy 
 and volition ; two great things towards the 
 attainment of childish happiness. Her educa- 
 tion fared better than it might have done had
 
 48 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 it not been for an old friend of her uncle the 
 archivist, a poor, a very poor priest, who pos- 
 sessed a benefice which afforded him just where- 
 withal to live. But all that he had to do for 
 this assured, though meagre livelihood, was to 
 recite his canonical hours, and say mass at a 
 certain altar in a certain obscure little church 
 daily. And as the performance of these duties 
 left a very large number of hours wholly un- 
 occupied on his hands, Don Ignazio Moloni had 
 found a not disagreeable occupation for some of 
 them in teaching the pretty and bright little 
 girl most of all he knew, including at least 
 reading, writing, and a certain very limited 
 amount of arithmetic, together with the rudi- 
 mentary elements of music. 
 
 Then it had come to pass that from a very 
 early age Lucia had begun to earn a little 
 money by her own exertions, if exertion that 
 could be called which consisted only in the 
 exercise of the amount of self-denial and self- 
 control needed for remaining perfectly motion- 
 less. In a word, when quite a child she had 
 begun to exercise the profession — quite a re- 
 cognised one at Rome — of a model for painters 
 and sculptors. A piece of good fortune, and 
 the rare beauty and perfection of her face and
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETEB. 49 
 
 figure and limbs, had led to this preferment. 
 As might be easily guessed from the character 
 of her " noble Roman " father and her aunt, no 
 very large portion of the remuneration earned 
 in this manner had been permitted to remain in 
 the hands of Lucia for some years. But she 
 had begun to take the law into her own hands 
 in this matter at an earlier age than that at 
 which an English child would have found it 
 practicable to do so. And, though she had with 
 admirable generosity and constancy never failed 
 to devote a considerable part of her earnings 
 to the alleviation of the chronic condition of 
 poverty of her father and aunt, yet the fact 
 of having the command of even the slender 
 pittance which remained to her had made the 
 later years of her childhood far more tolerable 
 to her than they would have otherwise been. 
 
 But with the change from childhood to girl- 
 hood another and a far more serious order of 
 trials and troubles had begun for Lucia. For 
 a Roman girl her development into a woman 
 was not early. But when she was between six- 
 teen and seventeen, Lucia Savelli began very 
 rapidly to grow from a tall gawky girl into a 
 very beautiful maiden. And it was but a very 
 little time before she discovered that difficulties 
 
 YOL. I. E
 
 50 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 and dangers of a kind undreamed of heretofore 
 were becoming rife around her. Very soon 
 also, alas ! she discovered that no aid, protection, 
 or guardianship was to be looked for from those 
 who were her natural protectors. On the con- 
 trary, she found, not with that terrible pang at 
 the heart which another girl might be supposed 
 to feel under similar circumstances — because the 
 mode of her life and bringing up had not been 
 such as to foster much of affection between her 
 and her father and her aunt — but with a dread- 
 ful feeling of terror, that it was precisely from 
 these " home " agencies that she had the most 
 to fear. Protection against the wiles and 
 temptations of poor suitors, who *would en- 
 deavour unjustly and fraudulently to possess 
 themselves by dint of cajolery of this newly 
 found property — their Lucia's budding loveli- 
 ness — was indeed forthcoming. But when an 
 honest and upright purchaser should be found, 
 really minded to bid for the merchandise, and 
 well able to pay for it, what was there to do but 
 improve the occasion and the good fortune to 
 the uttermost ? Virtue ! — what could a girl in 
 Lucia's position have to do with such a thing ? 
 Just as well be hankering after a carriage and 
 pair, or a box at the opera. Virtue (in that
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 51 
 
 connection) meant the indulgence of one's own 
 caprices. And a poor girl who was not born 
 with any silver spoon in her mouth, could not 
 learn too soon that she could not afford any 
 such fastidious luxury. Nor did it ever occur 
 to the noble Eoman and his excellent sister 
 that there could be any difference of opinion 
 between them and their daughter and niece, as 
 to the proper use which her beauty should be 
 made to subserve. But the elders deemed it 
 exceedingly likely that their Lucia might turn 
 out such an unnatural child as to endeavour to 
 deprive them of any share of the profit that 
 could be derived from it. 
 
 It was just at this time, when Lucia was 
 beginning to feel desperate, and was returning 
 each night to the home in the Borgo Angelico 
 with a nameless dread and horror in her heart, 
 that she chanced to be seen in the studio of 
 a painter to whom she was sitting — or rather 
 standing — for a Saint Cecilia, by M. Jules 
 Morel, a French sculptor established in Rome. 
 M. Morel's branch of art consisted mainly in 
 the invention of subjects and the preparation 
 of designs intended for multiplication by the 
 bronze-caster for Parisian drawing-rooms and 
 chimney-pieces. He was just then engaged on 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 a very charming thing — Youth and Age sup- 
 porting a timepiece between them, — and it 
 struck his experienced eye that the arm and 
 shoulder that he saw holding St. Cecilia's lyre 
 would be just the thing he wanted. So a 
 bargain was very soon made, and the girl 
 undertook to be at M. Morel's studio in the Yia 
 di S. Basilio the following morning. 
 
 And there Lucia's fate for life — and, it may be 
 hoped, for something beyond — was irrevocably 
 decided, fixed, and settled. 
 
 The matter fell out in this wise. 
 
 M. Jules Morel, being a gaunt hard-featured 
 Frenchman, with the face of a baboon em- 
 bellished in the highest style of tonsorial art, of 
 some eight and forty years of age, was of course 
 a " homme a bonnes fortunes." As he had been 
 upwards of twenty years in Italy he of course 
 spoke Italian fluently, and began at once to talk 
 to the beautiful Roman girl in a style of elegant 
 badinage, of which she understood as much as 
 if he had been talking Choctaw. He had had 
 frequent experience of that stupidity which 
 prevents the Italians from understanding their 
 own tongue when spoken without any admixture 
 of their barbarous local dialects, and was not 
 surprised, therefore, at Lucia's slowness of com-
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 53 
 
 prehension. The gist of his eloquence, however, 
 in the present case, readily admitted of being 
 supplemented by action ; and this commentary 
 he at once proceeded to supply in a very unmis- 
 takable manner, to the intense terror and distress 
 of our Lucia ; when very suddenly a white- 
 bloused and scarlet-capped man, who had been 
 working at a block of marble in an outer studio, 
 the door of communication with which was only 
 half closed, stepped into M. Jules Morel's inner 
 sanctum, and coming with one stride to Lucia's 
 side, took her, rather rudely it might have 
 seemed, by the arm, with two more strides 
 walked her out of the inner room, and with three 
 more across the outer workshop to the door, 
 which he opened with the hand which was dis- 
 engaged. Then he spoke for the first time — 
 
 " You had better go away from this place and 
 not come back here any more, Signorina. Tell 
 me where you live. I will settle with M. Morel 
 for you, and if you will permit me, I will call at 
 your home, and let you know the result. Don't 
 be alarmed ; I will make it all straight. ' Borgo 
 Angelico, numero 47 ; fourth floor.' Yery well ; 
 I shan't forget. Good day. I will be there by 
 seven to-morrow morning." 
 
 Lucia hardly stayed to say even " Thank
 
 54 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 you ! ' but sped away, and, turning into the first 
 solitary corner she could find, sat down and 
 began to cry passionately. This was so unlike 
 herself, however, that she soon stopped in angry 
 surprise to find herself thus moved. And then 
 she began to think a little of M. Jules Morel, 
 and a good deal of her deliverer from that 
 gentleman. Then she picked herself up and 
 turned in the direction of the studio of her 
 former employer, to see whether the preferment 
 of representative of St. Cecilia was yet vacant ; 
 thinking so persistently as she walked of the 
 visitor who was to come to the Borgo Angelico 
 on the morrow morning, and of the probability 
 that she might be disappointed by his not 
 coming at all — yes, it would be a disappoint- 
 ment, there was no denying that — that to her 
 extreme surprise she found she had missed her 
 way. What could she have been dreaming of ? — 
 she who knew so well every step of the ground. 
 However, the false turn was soon remedied ; the 
 author of the St. Cecilia had not yet succeeded 
 in supplying her place ; never having tried, 
 indeed, but fully intending to wait till his first- 
 rate and cheaply paid model should be able to 
 return to him ; and Lucia was soon again hold- 
 ing her lyre, a somewhat less fancy-free St. 
 Cecilia then she had been before her adventure.
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 55 
 
 Meanwhile Carlo Carena — for the reader need 
 hardly be told that the workman in the white 
 blouse and the scarlet cap was no other than 
 he — was left to settle scores with the utterly 
 astonished and no little indignant M. Morel. 
 
 That, however, did not turn out to be so 
 difficult a matter as might have been imagined. 
 
 Carlo returned to his block of marble in 
 silence, waiting for any remark which his 
 employer might see fit to make. And the latter 
 had thus the advantage of a minute or two, in 
 which to estimate how greatly discretion might 
 be the better part of valour on this occasion. 
 What with a very lively apprehension of the 
 awkward habit the Romans are supposed to 
 have, of being unpleasantly ready with knives ; 
 and what with a keen perception of the mischief 
 it would do to his interest to quarrel with his 
 workman, M. Jules was not disposed to push the 
 quarrel a Voutrance, or indeed to make a quarrel 
 of the little incident at all. 
 
 " Do you know, Signor Carlo, that you were 
 very near making me angry ? " he said in a 
 species of lingua franca (meaning here a very 
 free language indeed) which habit had taught 
 the workman to comprehend. " Thank Heaven 
 I controlled myself, for when I am angry, I
 
 56 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 am terrible, see you ? When once the blood 
 mounts up to the brain, my faith, I answer for 
 myself no longer. But why didn't you tell me 
 that la Signorina Lucia was a friend of yours ? 
 How should I know ! Jules Morel is not the 
 man to wish to poach on another's preserves. 
 Faith, he has no need to do that ! Bah ! let us 
 respect the sacred rights of the heart. But you 
 should have told me that you had a prior title 
 to the little one." 
 
 " I never saw the girl in my life before," said 
 Carlo very quietly. 
 
 " Comment done ! " cried M. Morel, speaking 
 in French, and staring at Carlo with very 
 genuine, surprise ; " you don't know her ! then, 
 I must say, Signor Carlo " 
 
 " Scusi Signore, don't say it. Remember how 
 terrible you are when you become angry. Dont 
 become angry. There is nothing to be got by 
 it. Didn't you see that the girl did not like 
 your way of making yourself agreeable to her. 
 And it's dangerous work meddling with our 
 Roman girls against their will. You would be 
 having a knife between your ribs one of these 
 evenings as you were coming home from the 
 Caffe Greco, from her father, or her brother, or 
 her lover. What's the good of getting into hot
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 57 
 
 water ? Trust me that it is better as it is. Non 
 e vero f 
 
 " Well, perhaps it is. Only, you know 
 
 But I dare say you are right. The first fellow 
 in the street may pick the girl up, for aught I 
 care. There was nothing so special about her. 
 There are plenty of fish in the sea a deal better 
 than that catch any way. Bah ! I shall think 
 no more about it." 
 
 Nevertheless, it may be surmised that M. 
 Jules did think more about it ; and that his 
 feelings towards his workman were not ren- 
 dered more friendly by the incident. 
 
 And that was the way in which Lucia Savelli 
 and Carlo Carena first became acquainted.
 
 58 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 More than twelve months had passed between 
 the date of the little adventure in M. Morel's 
 studio, which had so important a bearing on 
 Lucia's destiny, and the June morning on which 
 we left her waiting with her friend in the 
 Piazza di S. Pietro for the coming forth of the 
 grand Corpus Domini procession. And in the 
 course of those twelve months Lucia and Carlo 
 had become all in all to each other ; and more 
 literally and exactly so than in most cases in 
 which the phrase is used. Carlo Carena — the 
 only son of a tenor and a soprano, who had 
 earned a little fortune by hard work and then 
 had lost it all by an ambitious assumption of 
 the part of impresario of a company of singers, 
 and had died broken down and broken-hearted 
 within a few months of each other — Carlo 
 Carena was absolutely alone in the world. 
 Lucia, was, as has been seen, much worse than
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 59 
 
 alone. And what might have been her fate, 
 had it not been for the timely accident which 
 gave her such a protector and friend, it is 
 dreadful to think of. As it was, Carlo was 
 her guide, her instructor, her protector, her 
 counsellor, her refuge. Her lover he was, and 
 her husband he was to be, of course. That 
 admitted of no sort of discussion or shadow 
 of doubt. But as for the when, nothing, alas ! 
 seemed clear upon this point, save that the 
 when could not be now. It was not that either 
 of them would have shrunk from facing the 
 world together upon the very limited and pre- 
 carious means of finding bread and shelter 
 which was before them. But marriage at Rome 
 without the consent of a living father was a 
 difficult thing; in the case, indeed, of a girl 
 in her teens, an impossible thing. And the 
 noble Roman absolutely refused to hear of his 
 daughter's marriage to a workman in a blouse, 
 who was not even of noble blood, and who was 
 as poor as a church mouse, with little prospect 
 of ever being any richer. 
 
 But besides these reasons, which (however 
 absurd they may seem to the reader, when 
 urged by a father in the social position of 
 Alessandro Savelli) did not appear altogether
 
 60 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 unreasonable to the world in which that noble 
 Roman lived, there was at the bottom of the 
 heart of Alessandro and of his sister a bitter 
 resentment against this stranger — this impudent 
 workman, who had thrust himself into their 
 lives, with the result of exceedingly jeopar- 
 dizing, if not altogether destroying, the hopes of 
 profit to be got (in an honourable way, if might 
 be ; if not, in some way or other) out of that 
 rare bit of property of theirs — Lucia's now 
 magnificently developed beauty. Still, the father 
 and aunt had by no means abandoned all hope 
 of making this sole trump card in their hand 
 win the game for them yet. Carlo had thus 
 far with infinite caution and forbearance con- 
 trived to avoid any open quarrel with Signor 
 Alessandro and the Signora Orsola, his sister. 
 He had contented himself with vigilantly watch- 
 ing over Lucia ; carefully frustrating, often 
 without appearing in the matter himself in any 
 way, every attempt to place her in situations 
 of peril ; and ready at a moment's notice, should 
 the urgency of the case require it, to resort to 
 any means, however violent, for rescuing her 
 from any position of real and imminent danger. 
 As to the less abominable hopes, which 
 Signor Savelli had at one time nourished, of
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 61 
 
 feathering his nest for once and all by means 
 of a rich son-in-law, Lucia herself was instru- 
 mental in driving him to more criminal designs, 
 by utterly refusing to lend herself to them in 
 any way. It was easy for a father to prevent 
 his child from marrying against his will, but 
 not so easy to compel her to marry against 
 hers. And, as I have said, if Carlo had not 
 been there, there is no knowing what might 
 have happened. As it was, nothing had hap- 
 pened as yet save the generation of a great deal 
 of bad blood, and ill-will, and bickering, which 
 made poor Lucia's home more painful than ever 
 to her. And this was the state of things when 
 Lucia and Carlo, while waiting for the pro- 
 cession, had the conversation recorded in a 
 previous page. 
 
 The others of the party had been abundantly 
 occupied the while in observing the prepara- 
 tions for the show, and in that sort of talk, on 
 the part of those who had before witnessed it, 
 which such experienced people are wont to in- 
 dulge in on similar occasions at the expense of 
 their less well-informed friends. 
 
 The procession of the Corpus Domini at 
 Rome is, perhaps, the most splendid ceremony 
 of the Church as far as mere spectacular effect
 
 62 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 is concerned. All ecclesiastical Rome takes 
 part in it — at least, all those portions of the 
 ecclesiastical world which can either add eclat 
 to the show by their high rank, or contribute 
 to the effect of it by the strikingness of their 
 appearance. Thus the Pope himself, and all 
 the cardinals, and other dignitaries innumer- 
 able — " Masters in artibus, Bishops in partibus," 
 as poor Barham sang — and prelates of all 
 grades, take part in it ; and the enormous pro- 
 portions of the huge procession are increased by 
 bodies of the monks of all the orders represented 
 in Rome, black, white, brown, and party- 
 coloured in wonderful diversity. The mere 
 preparations for the passing of the processsion 
 are a sight to be seen. The whole of those 
 enormous semi-circular colonnades of Bernini 
 are hung with rich scarlet draperies, with the 
 armorial bearings of the cardinals emblazoned 
 on them ; and the effect of this magnificent 
 display of colour is truly superb. Where the 
 colonnades come to an end, at the spot where 
 the circular Piazza of St. Peter opens into 
 the space called the Piazza Rusticucci, an awn- 
 ing is erected which conducts to a vast tent 
 erected in the latter space, beneath which the 
 ceremony of the adoration of the Holy Sacra-
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 63 
 
 ment, the carrying of which is the theoretical 
 purpose of the procession, takes place. And 
 then the vast body of dignitaries, monks, friars, 
 etc., etc., streams back again to the huge church 
 under the opposite semicircular colonnade. 
 
 It was at last nearly time for the head of the 
 procession to issue forth from the church. The 
 position which Lucia and Ninetta had selected 
 was a very favourable one, permitting the 
 party to catch a distant view across the Piazza 
 of St. Peter of the procession as it emerged 
 from the doors of the Basilica, and then again 
 to see it in detail, and close at hand, as it 
 defiled past the spot where they stood. All 
 the little party were more or less excited by 
 the expectation of the coming show. Ninetta 
 was in a high state of delightful enthusiasm, 
 both from anticipation of the coming pleasure, 
 and still more so from the exceeding enjoyment 
 of her pre-eminence as the only one of the girls 
 — little Clelia counted for nothing — who had 
 seen the sight before, and who was therefore 
 entitled to do the honours of the day to her 
 companions, just as if the whole affair was 
 her own, and the Pope and the cardinals and 
 all the rest of them prepared and got up by her 
 especial orders, and for her particular behoof.
 
 64 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 Little Clelia was speechless with awe and ex- 
 pectation, her entire contentment with the 
 occasion and all its surroundings being to some 
 small degree marred by a misgiving lest the 
 Pope, when he passed by, knowing well, as 
 he of course did, all the sins of omission she 
 had been guilty of in the matter of sweepings 
 imperfectly performed and the like, should 
 single her out by name and administer some 
 crushing reproof to her there and then before 
 the whole world. If such a thing should happen 
 she felt sure that Nanni would have to carry 
 her out of the crowd fainting. As for Nanni 
 himself, he was in a perfect state of enjoyment. 
 He had nothing at the present moment to do ; 
 he had a variety of gay and pleasant sights 
 before his eyes ; he was tranquilly and not at 
 all impatiently expecting a further gratification 
 to his curiosity ; and, though last, by no means 
 least, he was standing in close proximity to 
 Clelia. He did not make use of the opportunity 
 to speak to her much. It was quite sufficient 
 for his enjoyment that he was close to her. His 
 father Tancredi stood patiently staring around 
 him. He had come out for a holiday, and 
 thought that he was enjoying it. But the real 
 fact was that his thoughts were away among his
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 65 
 
 droves of buffaloes and of horses, and that he 
 would, in truth, have been happier — though he 
 would have been much surprised to be told so — 
 had he been there in the flesh also. 
 
 At last, when it was within a few minutes 
 of the time, a certain undulatory movement was 
 visible in the crowd, a space was in some unac- 
 countable way cleared, and a handful of mounted 
 soldiers passed briskly towards the steps of the 
 church with much clatter and jingle. They 
 were a small party of French dragoons, to whom 
 some duty of keeping the line, or forming in 
 some way a part of the show had been assigned, 
 and who, with the ostentatious indifference to 
 the convenience or wishes of the Romans, which 
 marked their sojourn at Rome, as it has always 
 marked their sojourn in every country that has 
 known the misfortune of it, were on their way 
 thus late to take up the position allotted them. 
 
 Ninetta, as the men rode jinglingly past the 
 end of the colonnade where our little party 
 of friends was stationed, became visibly much 
 excited. She flushed crimson all over her fair 
 white forehead, up to the roots of her lovelv 
 blonde hair. Her lips parted in a pleased yet 
 half nervous smile, and her breath came quick 
 and short. She was in such a state of trepida- 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 tion that even Tancredi Melitta and Nanni 
 observed it, and stared at her. 
 
 " Oh, Lucia ! " she exclaimed, plucking her 
 friend's dress, " that's he ; do look ! I wonder 
 whether he will see me ? Doesn't he look grand 
 on his horse at the head of his men ? It seems 
 odd, doesn't it, but I never saw him before on 
 horseback. He sits in his saddle just as easy 
 and noble-looking as if it were an easy-chair. 
 Now he is looking this way. He sees me ! he 
 sees me ! " 
 
 And Ninetta, in an inexpressible flutter, began 
 telegraphing and kissing her hand to the 
 officer riding at the head of the dozen or so of 
 troopers ; no " grand captain," as she had in 
 her ignorance boasted, but a young sub-lieu- 
 tenant — one Hector de Rampont by name — a 
 good-looking young fellow enough, though per- 
 haps a more competent or more experienced eye 
 than that of our poor little Ninetta might have 
 failed to discover, either in the face or bearing 
 of the man, any of that " nobleness " which her 
 fancy-stricken eyes saw in them. 
 
 It was quite true that the officer had caught 
 sight of Ninetta. Making his horse deviate a 
 step or two from his direct course, till he was 
 within speaking distance of Ninetta and her
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 67 
 
 party, he cast a haughty and supercilious glance 
 at each member of the latter, and then, leaning 
 down from his saddle, said in what purported to 
 be a whisper, but was, in fact, perfectly audible 
 to them all — 
 
 " To think of finding you, little one, in the 
 midst of all this canaille! Be sure you don't 
 move from here when the job is over, till I 
 come to look for you. I shall be able to get 
 away immediately afterwards, and I will come 
 here directly. Be sure you don't stir, or you'll 
 get lost in the crowd, you little darling ! " 
 
 And so, with another offensively supercilious 
 stare at Ninetta's companions, he turns his 
 bridle, and leads his men to the place destined 
 to them in the neighbourhood of the church. 
 
 " Well, if those are the manners of officers 
 with gold lace on their coats, I had rather live 
 with poor devils in sheepskin," said Nanni, 
 looking after the departing officer with no 
 kindly expression. 
 
 " Figliuolo mio" said his father, " he is but a 
 Frenchman ; you can't expect the barbari to 
 have Roman manners. It is probable that he 
 knows no better." 
 
 Ninetta turned from one to the other speaker 
 with an angry toss of the head, dilated nostrils,
 
 68 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 and a quivering lip, that shewed that indigna- 
 tion was struggling in her with a strong dis- 
 position to burst into tears. 
 
 " Oh, uncle, how can you talk in such a way! 
 I am quite sure the French officer meant no 
 offence. Different people have different manners, 
 you know. Why should we expect French 
 people to look and speak and move just like 
 us ? " said Lucia, trying hard with her eyes 
 to make her uncle and cousin understand that 
 they were distressing Ninetta by their remarks. 
 Then whispering to her friend, " Never mind 
 what they say. What does it matter ? Uncle 
 always says a deal more than he means. You'll 
 see, he'll think no more of it." 
 
 " But it was not kind of him to speak of my 
 damo in that way," remonstrated Ninetta, pout- 
 ing and all but bursting into tears. 
 
 " Figliuola mia, how should I know it was 
 your damo ? I would not ha' said a word if I 
 had known. But if I had a daughter " 
 
 " Look, look ! " cried Lucia, glad to seize on 
 the diversion offered by the procession, which 
 just at that moment began to show itself emerg- 
 ing from the open doors of the church ; " there 
 it comes ; I can just see the first banner — now 
 ■ — now coming through the great door."
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 69 
 
 All eyes were instantly and anxiously turned 
 in the direction of the church ; and the unlucky 
 incident, which had threatened to mar the har- 
 mony of the little party was happily lost sight 
 of in matter of more immediately exciting 
 interest.
 
 70 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 It was curious to observe the stilling effect 
 which the first appearance of the procession, so 
 long waited for, exercised on the vast crowd 
 that now densely thronged the piazza. Strange, 
 too, to note how very quickly, how almost sim- 
 ultaneously, every unit in the vast multitude 
 became aware of the commencement of the ex- 
 pected show. There had been a good deal of noise 
 in the piazza. It was a different sort of noise 
 from that which would have arisen from a simi- 
 larly assembled English crowd. There was no 
 shouting, no voice raised in anger, and — special 
 difference of all — no laughter. But every human 
 being of the thousands there was talking, and 
 the product was an enormous buzz, which, heard 
 at sufficient distance for the general effect of 
 the whole and not the particular effect of any 
 portion to be appreciated by the ear, went up
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 71 
 
 in a great roar. And this roar was stilled 
 utterly, as by a sudden striking dead of all 
 the vast multitude, when the first banner was 
 dimly visible a few feet within the great door, 
 and then clearly visible as it passed the portal 
 and emerged slowly into the outer sunlight. 
 
 It seemed as if the procession, like some 
 strange and huge monster, crawling, flexible, 
 like an enormous python, was issuing out of the 
 darkness of a great cavern. But presently far- 
 glimmering specks of light, capriciously moving, 
 could be distinguished at greater distances within 
 the cavernous depths, as the component parts of 
 the monster procession were forming themselves 
 into order within the church. 
 
 The procession is not, however, completely 
 and definitively formed into the order in which 
 it will proceed to the Piazza Eusticucci till it 
 commences to defile from the gallery at the foot 
 of the great stairs of the Vatican. For the Pope 
 and the cardinals do not come from the church 
 of St. Peter, but from the Sistine Chapel in 
 the Vatican . 
 
 At the spot specified, the senior cardinal 
 deacon, fully robed and with his mitre on his 
 head, takes his seat between the Glovernor of 
 Eome, and the first papal Majordomo. The
 
 72 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 cardinal has a rod in his hand, and so superin- 
 tends the formation of the procession, while the 
 Pope is saying mass in the Sistine Chapel. 
 When the mass is finished the Pope takes his 
 place on (or in) that peculiar machine, in- 
 vented and constructed for this special purpose, 
 which is so contrived that the Pope, when 
 raised with it on the shoulders of the trained 
 men who carry him during the procession, pre- 
 sents the appearance of one kneeling in front of 
 a faldstool, and holding the ostensory which 
 contains the Holy Sacrament aloft in his hands. 
 In fact, he is sitting, and a support is contrived 
 for his hands. It would indeed be very fatiguing, 
 and probably impossible for an aged man to re- 
 main in the required position for so long a time 
 as the duration of the procession ; and doubtless 
 quite impossible for most men to continue for 
 such a time the position of the hands with the 
 ostensory in them. Hence the necessity for that 
 arrangement, which Carlyle in a well-known 
 passage characterizes accurately enough as doing 
 scenic worship with a pasteboard tail. The 
 pasteboard tail is of course covered with the 
 enormously long train of the embroidered white 
 satin mantle, the due and effective arrangement 
 of which is the care of the first master of the
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 73 
 
 ceremonies, to be performed with his own hands 
 when the Pope at the end of the mass takes his 
 place in the machine, and is ready to start on 
 his journey. By the time he is brought down, 
 the cardinal deacon has got all ready for a start, 
 and the procession begins to move ; every indi- 
 vidual in it carrying a wax candle in his hand, 
 and singing a special form of service, composed 
 for this occasion, to the due recital of which a 
 bonus of fifty years' indulgence is by special bull 
 attached. 
 
 The procession is opened by a troop of 
 soldiers, and at the sides of it, at small intervals, 
 the Pope's runners, dressed in black with short 
 laced surplices and purple cassocks, and with 
 silver maces in their hands, see to the main- 
 tenance of regularity and good order. 
 
 After the soldiers comes a huge cross borne 
 aloft. Immediately after it walk in their black 
 gowns, two and two, the children of the Apos- 
 tolic Hospital of St. Michael. Next come the 
 children of the Papal Founding Hospital, in 
 white dresses. Then come all the monastic 
 bodies, those of the mendicant orders first, each 
 society preceded by its own huge standard. 
 
 Those of the third order of St. Franciscans 
 come first, thus occupying the position of
 
 74 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 greatest humility, precedence in a procession 
 being arranged by contraries. The bare-foot 
 Augustines come next, with their leathern 
 girdles and large rosaries hanging thereto by 
 their sides. Then the long-bearded Capuchins, 
 with rope girdles and rosaries. Nine other 
 mendicant varieties follow, the last, i.e. the most 
 honourable, place being reserved for the Do- 
 minicans. 
 
 Did the reader ever chance to see a procession 
 of mendicant friars ? It is a sight often to be 
 seen on less magnificent occasions and scenes 
 than those of the Corpus Domini at Home, and 
 it is a very remarkable one for anybody, who 
 has a Lavater-ish eye, or any phrenological 
 notions. The shaven scalps of the bareheaded 
 figures show the character of the heads and 
 faces to the greatest advantage, or disadvantage, 
 as it would be more accurate to say. And with 
 singularly few exceptions, the collection of 
 revoltingly low types is quite extraordinary. 
 From the almost idiotic expression resulting 
 from the poor starved brow, flattened head and 
 receding chin, to the thin lips, eager eye, and 
 conically shaped skull that marks the fanatic ; 
 from the malignant scowl indicating unmis- 
 takable hostility to all the world outside the
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 75 
 
 cloister gate, to the pinched fox-like physi- 
 ognomy telling of petty spite towards all within 
 it ; and from the utter vacancy of simply animal 
 existence, to the heavy jowl, gross pendant, lips, 
 and undeveloped forehead of the mere brutal 
 sensualist ; — every most repellant variety of 
 human type will be observed among the heavily 
 draped figures, so listlessly dragging their lazy 
 limbs in the long crawling line. Here and there 
 a face and head may be seen that tell absolutely 
 nothing ; never one that indicates aught of 
 elevation, or spirituality, or nobility. In truth, 
 how should there be such ? 
 
 Next after the various coloured bodies of 
 mendicants come the non-mendicant monastic 
 bodies : Cistercians, Olivetans, Benedictines, etc. 
 — " black spirits and white, brown spirits and 
 grey." The members of these bodies are 
 invariably, looking at the body as a whole, 
 less disagreeable-looking than their mendicant 
 fellows. 
 
 These are followed by the huge cross of the 
 secular clergy of Eome, with the pupils of the 
 Pontifical seminary immediately after it, and 
 behind them the priests of the fifty-four parishes 
 of Rome. 
 
 After them troop the canons of nine different
 
 76 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 capitular bodies. Certain small differences are 
 observable in their costumes, indicating to in- 
 structed eyes particular privileges, or immuni- 
 ties, or specialities of rank, the grants of this 
 or that Pope to the body thus evidencing them, 
 and the special object of pride and self-admira- 
 tion to the possessors of bulls conferring such 
 privileges. 
 
 Next come the chapters of the four minor 
 basilicas, and then those of the three principal 
 churches dignified with the title of patriarchal 
 basilicas, i.e. Santa Maria Maggiore, St. Pietro in 
 Yaticano, and St. Giovanni Laterano ; the place 
 of honour and precedence being thus reserved 
 to the Lateran Church, which boasts itself to 
 be " omnium ecclesiarum mater et caput" even 
 over the chapter of St. Peter's. Each of these 
 chapters is preceded, or followed, or accompanied 
 by mace-bearers, and beadles, and standard- 
 bearers, and a huge canopy of red and yellow 
 cloth, under which the special relics preserved 
 by the church to which each chapter belongs 
 are carried. Every chapter has also an immense 
 crucifix borne aloft and attended by a sacristan 
 carrying a bell, which is rung every now and 
 then " to admonish the spectators to venerate 
 the ensign of our redemption, or to invite them
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 77 
 
 to stand out of the way, and let the procession 
 pass." Every chapter has its bell ; but the 
 chapter of the Lateran, for greater and special 
 dignity, has two. 
 
 Then comes the Yice-Grovernor of Rome, in 
 full episcopal costume, with all the members and 
 attendants of the court of the Cardinal Yicar. 
 
 Then follow all the members of what is 
 termed the " Cappella Pontificia," which means 
 what in the case of a lay prince would be called 
 " his court." They are all duly enumerated and 
 distinguished, according to their proper pre- 
 cedence and their varied costumes, in various 
 works on the Pontifical ceremonies. But they 
 are far too numerous for their titles to be 
 rehearsed here, especially as whole columns of 
 Ducange would be needed for the understanding 
 of many of them. 
 
 There are " abbreviators of the greater park," 
 in purple silk cassocks, with large torches in 
 their hands ; auditors of the Holy Roman Rota ; 
 Apostolical subdeacons : " masters hostiary of 
 the red rod ; " Archimandrites, with lace and 
 gold fringe ; and thirty other bodies of persons 
 or individuals, all with strange titles and 
 gorgeously arrayed. Then come the cardinal 
 deacons, followed by the cardinal priests, and
 
 78 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 lastly, the cardinal bishops. Every cardinal 
 has his long train carried by a trainbearer, and 
 is attended by his household, and escorted by 
 Swiss guards in their well-known mediaeval 
 costume. The three " Conservators of the 
 Eoman people " in purple and gold come next; 
 Then the Senator of Rome, with purple mantle, 
 whose huge train is borne by two pages. The 
 title of this last grandee always seems to me to 
 be invested with a sort of ironical " Last of the 
 Mohicans " or " skeleton of the regiment " sad- 
 ness. The Senator of Rome, all that remains of 
 such a Senate. 
 
 Then comes the Governor of Rome, quite a 
 different thing, it will be observed, from his 
 predecessor, the Senator. The Senator is a 
 layman. But this latter, the Governor, is an 
 ecclesiastic, as he who " governs " in Rome 
 naturally must be. And next to him marches 
 the " Principe assistente al Soglio," one of the 
 Roman princes who has the duty and the privi- 
 lege of standing by the side of the Papal throne 
 on all occasions of high ceremony. He is 
 donned in an ordinary black coat, but has a 
 mantle fringed with lace, and carries, like all 
 the rest, a lighted torch. 
 
 Next come two high officials bearing censers
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 79 
 
 with incense (we are n earing the culminating 
 point now), and attendants hearing the vases of 
 incense ; then the two first of the Papal 
 masters of the ceremonies, followed by two 
 Papal runners with silver maces, and then 
 
 PONTIFEX MAXIMUS, 
 
 the Pope — the Holy Father — " Servus servo- 
 rum," the servant of the servants of Grod — the 
 successor of St. Peter — the Vicegerent of Christ 
 upon earth. 
 
 He is borne aloft on the shoulders of men, in 
 an apparently kneeling attitude, as has been 
 said ; and on either side of him are carried the 
 immense white feather fans — fiabelli the techni- 
 cal name of them is — carried by two of the 
 private chamberlains, with two others of their 
 colleagues at their side, to relieve them turn 
 about in the work of carrying these strange and 
 huge insignia of Papal state. Over the head of 
 this " Servus servorum," is carried a large 
 canopy of cloth of silver with flowing draperies 
 adorned with the Papal arms, and richly orna- 
 mented with embroidery and lace, and fringe 
 of gold. The eight poles which support this 
 canopy are borne from the Sistine Chapel as
 
 80 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 far as the first landing place of the stairs by 
 prelates in purple cassocks, and mantles ; thence 
 to the vestibule of St. Peter's by the pupils of 
 the Austro-Hungarian College, in red cassocks ; 
 thence halfway along the colonnade by the 
 pupils of the Propaganda, in black and red 
 cassocks ; thence to the end of the colonnade by 
 the pupils of the English College, all in black ; 
 thence as far as the door of the Accoramboni 
 Palace by the pupils of the Irish College, also 
 in black ; thence to the convent of the Scolopi 
 Fathers, by eight priests appointed by the master 
 of the ceremonies ; thence all along the colon- 
 nade on the left the canopy is borne by repre- 
 sentatives of the Florentine nation in full court 
 dress ; and from the end of the colonnade 
 through the gallery on that side, which brings 
 the procession back again to the church, the 
 poles are taken in hand by deputies of the 
 Sienese nation (for Siena was once upon a time 
 counted as the capital of a "nation" of its 
 own) ; from them the pupils of the noble Papal 
 academy receive the canopy, which is carried 
 by these latter halfway up the nave of the 
 church; and there the magistrates of Kome 
 take it, and carry it to the foot of the Papal 
 altar, where the procession finally terminates.
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 81 
 
 As soon as the scholars of the Austro-Hun- 
 garian College have got him on their shoulders, 
 the guns at St. Angelo open fire and continue 
 to roar at minute intervals till the procession 
 has re-entered the church on its return. And 
 all the bells ring out a triumphant peel ; in a 
 very unharmonious and jangling manner, how- 
 ever, for, curiously enough, artistic bell-ringing 
 is to be found in England alone of all the world. 
 A crowd of other attendants surrounds the Pope, 
 among them the physician-in-chief to his Holi- 
 ness and his chief chamberlain ; these two alone 
 of all the procession not carrying torches, " in 
 order that they may have their hands free to 
 assist the Pope should any sudden emergency 
 require it." With them walk a "secret 
 sweeper in cassock of serge with purple silk 
 girdle, and laced with stripes of velvet with 
 a border," and the Pope's butler in an ordinary 
 black coat. The members of the Papal choir 
 also walk around the pontiff, singing the hymn 
 Lauda Sion. Lastly, the Apostolic protonotaries 
 — " the three tufted prelates ; that is to say, the 
 Auditor-General of the Reverend Apostolic 
 Chamber, the Treasurer-General, and the Pre- 
 fect of the Apostolic Palaces " — and the generals 
 of the monastic orders, close the ecclesiastical 
 vol. i. a
 
 82 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 part of the procession. The rear is brought 
 up by as large a show of military as the Papal 
 resources can furnish. 
 
 One part of the ceremony, due to the care 
 of an official who does not appear in the pro- 
 cession in person — the Pope's gardener — must 
 not be omitted ; for it adds very materially to 
 the picturesque effect of the whole scene. The 
 entire route over which the procession has to 
 pass is thickly strewn with bay and other 
 fragrant leaves, agreeable to more than one of 
 the senses. 
 
 Such was the procession which the immense 
 crowd in the piazza had assembled to see. It 
 was almost wholly a Roman crowd. For the 
 vast numbers of foreign visitors, who throng 
 the Eternal City in the winter and spring, and 
 crowd to the Christmas and Easter celebrations, 
 have almost all hurried off to the north before 
 the dog-days bring the great festival of Corpus 
 Domini with them. A few old Eoman habitues, 
 who have learned to do at Rome as Romans do, 
 and live as Romans live, a few foreign artists, 
 who have made Rome their permanent resi- 
 dence, remain. But, speaking generally, the 
 " forestieri " may be said to have all gone their 
 various ways, and to have left, during the
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 83 
 
 summer months at least, Rome to the Romans, 
 to live their own lives according to their own 
 devices — devices which are, with respect to 
 most matters appertaining to the conduct of 
 life and the method of enjoying it, very different 
 from our devices.
 
 84 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Lucia had called the attention of the little 
 party to the glimpse that was obtainable from 
 the spot where they stood of the component 
 parts of the procession as they defiled into 
 order, when at the same moment a great hush 
 fell on all the crowd. The little circumstances 
 that had threatened to disturb the good under- 
 standing between Ninetta and her friends the 
 Melittas were forgotten in the interest of the 
 moment. 
 
 But it was very little that could be seen thus 
 from the end of the colonnade. Patience was 
 yet needed before a really good view of the 
 sight in all its glory could be obtained ; but 
 that patience would be rewarded as soon as the 
 procession should reach the end of the semi- 
 circular colonnade on its way to the great tent 
 in the Piazza Rusticucci. It would then pass
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 85 
 
 immediately before the little knot of our friends ; 
 and they would again see, at least, the grand 
 sight of all — the Pontiff borne aloft above the 
 heads of the crowd, as he returned by the 
 opposite colonnade to the church. And our 
 friends, like all the rest of that crowd of Romans, 
 were perfectly well disposed to be patient. But 
 patience need not exclude the dear delight of 
 gossip — of a chiaccheria, as an Italian says — 
 literally, a chattery ; and as soon as the mo- 
 mentary impression produced by the first 
 appearance of the head of the procession had 
 somewhat worn off, the tongues began to wag 
 again ; and again the vast space of the piazza 
 was filled with the immense murmur of thou- 
 sands of voices. 
 
 Lucia feared that her uncle might again recur 
 to his disgust at the behaviour of the young 
 French officer, and his disapproval of such a 
 damo for a Roman girl in the position of Ninetta. 
 But fortunately, he was too much interested in 
 the present moment, and as soon as the roar of 
 voices around him made him aware that he too 
 might talk without any offence against the 
 proprieties of time and place, he began to cross- 
 question Ninetta's experience as to the particu- 
 lars of the sight they were awaiting. And the
 
 86 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 gratification of finding herself in the position of 
 an authority readily effaced from the young 
 girl's mind any recollection of the previous 
 offence. In fact, it was inevitable that Ninetta 
 and Lucia's uncle should talk together, if they 
 were not to remain silent — which would have 
 been a thing utterly impossible to Italians so 
 circumstanced — for Lucia and Carlo Carena soon 
 fell into a resumption of their tete-a-tete respect- 
 ing his visit to Signor Chianquinsi's studio on 
 the following morning, and what might be 
 expected to result therefrom, and what he should 
 say to M. Jules Morel on giving him notice of 
 his intention to quit his studio, and what he 
 should say to " Signor Chianquinsi," as they 
 both called Mr. Jenkins, with the perfect assur- 
 ance of pronouncing his name in the most satis- 
 factory manner. And Lucia had a great deal 
 to tell Carlo of the peculiarities of that gentle- 
 man, who, if all she said were true, must indeed 
 have been " an original " of the first water. 
 Then Nanni Melitta and Clelia were on their 
 part wholly engrossed by each other — the en- 
 joyment of the festival to them was the oppor- 
 tunity it gave them of being so ; though it is 
 probable that the satisfaction of standing side 
 by side was found by both of them to be a suffi-
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 87 
 
 cient amusement and gratification, and that the 
 tongue contributed less to the pleasure of the 
 occasion than in the case of any other two 
 persons in the piazza, Clelia would from time 
 to time try to stir Nanni up a little by asking 
 questions, to which he would reply by a " Who 
 knows ? " But none the less was their inter- 
 course very delightful to both of them, and so 
 engrossing as to prevent either of them from 
 having eyes or ears for any one else. So that 
 Tancredi Melitta and Ninetta were necessarily 
 forced into a tete-a-tete. 
 
 " Have you and Lucia been long acquainted, 
 jigliuola mia ? " asked Tancredi, by way of say- 
 ing something. 
 
 " About four years, Signor Tancredi. I was 
 quite young then," returned Ninetta, with a little 
 sigh, as over her departed youth. 
 
 " Quite young, eh ? Why, what do you call 
 yourself now, I should like to know ? " rejoined 
 Signor Melitta with a rather grim smile. He 
 was rather a grim man, was Tancredi Melitta 
 the buttero, with yellow cheeks, blue-black 
 stubble beard, and deepset eyes. 
 
 " Now I am seventeen, but I was only thirteen 
 then," said Ninetta, with an air of having 
 triumphantly maintained her position.
 
 88 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 " And how did you and Lucia come to make 
 friends ? " asked the buttero again, with very 
 languid curiosity. 
 
 " Oh, that was because Lucia is so good. I 
 don't know what would have become of me if it 
 had not been for Lucia. I used to live with a 
 marble collector in those days," replied Ninetta, 
 with her little sigh again. 
 
 " And what sort of trade is that ? " asked 
 Tancredi, whose country birth and breeding 
 had not given him the opportunity of becoming 
 acquainted with the minutiae of Roman life. 
 
 " Oh, it is not a bad trade. We used to go 
 round to the sculptors' studios and buy the 
 chips and dust to sell them to the marble cement 
 makers, who grind them down for cement." 
 
 " "We ? That was you and your master, I 
 suppose ; wasn't he good to you ? " asked Tan- 
 credi, still to make talk, rather than from feeling 
 any very lively interest in the subject of the 
 conversation. 
 
 " He ! It was an old woman. They are 
 mostly women who have that business in their 
 hands," returned Ninetta. 
 
 " Oh, an old woman ! But how was it that 
 you and Lucia fell in with each other ? " again 
 asked the buttero, veering back to the only point
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 89 
 
 in the matter that had any interest, and that 
 but a very slight one, for him. 
 
 " Why, you see, Signor Tancredi, I used to 
 go to the studios and find where there were 
 any chips or dust to be got rid of; and so one 
 day, in the morning early, there was Lucia just 
 getting ready to stand for a model to the artist, 
 and the head workman was telling me to go 
 away, and come again at the end of the week ; 
 and I began to cry — for you see, Signor Tan- 
 credi, I had had one beating already that morn- 
 ing for not having found any chips — and so 
 Lucia asked me what was the matter, and she 
 persuaded the workman to let me — that is to 
 say, my mistress — have the chips that day ; 
 and then we agreed, Lucia and I, to meet in the 
 evening : and we went and sat down on the 
 great steps in the Piazza di Spagna ; and — 
 ever since that we have been friends." 
 
 " And do you still follow the trade of collect- 
 ing marble ? " asked Tancredi, thinking more 
 of the nature of the calling he then heard of for 
 the first time, than of Ninetta's interest in the 
 matter. 
 
 " Oh, no ! Thanks to Lucia, I am in a much 
 better way now. She got a friend of hers to 
 teach me a little of the pearl-making, and then
 
 90 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 she got me a place in one of the great shops ; 
 and I have been there ever since." 
 
 " Oh ! making pearls, eh ? " said Tancredi. 
 
 " Yes ; but they ain't real pearls you know. 
 Roman pearls we call them — made to imitate 
 the real ones, you know." 
 
 " And I suppose you have got a holiday from 
 the shop for to-day — such a festa as this — 
 diamine I " * said the buttero. 
 
 " A longer holiday than that, worse luck," 
 returned Ninetta ; " a holiday that lasts from 
 May till October. We can't work at the pearl- 
 making in the hot weather. That is the worst 
 of it." 
 
 " Ay, that makes but a poor trade of it. 
 And what do you get while you are at work ? " 
 said the buttero, 
 
 " Two francs a day, and a dinner ; not so 
 bad, if it only lasted all the year round," 
 returned poor little Ninetta, who looked very 
 much as if it would have been considerably 
 better for her if at least the dinner had been 
 provided all the year round instead of only 
 during half of it. 
 
 * An almost untranslatable expletive. Perhaps some 
 such phrase as " I should think so," " I should hope so," 
 comes as near the mark as may be.
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 91 
 
 " And how do you make out to live from May 
 to October, figliuola mia ? " said the buttero, 
 looking at her compassionately. 
 
 " Oh ! I manage to save a little during the 
 winter ; and then I get a little now and then 
 by selling flowers in the cafe's ; and then, if the 
 worst comes to the worst, Lucia helps me a 
 little. Ah, Lucia, she is as good as a saint, 
 Lucia is. She would give me half her own 
 crust any clay, and I would give my life for 
 her, if she wanted it, that I would ! " said 
 Ninetta, clasping her hands and looking up to 
 heaven very much like one of those saints she 
 said her friend resembled. 
 
 " And how came it to pass," began the 
 buttero, who was about to question the girl 
 about the grand damo she had seemed so fond 
 of, but checked himself, remembering that the 
 topic had already led to some little unpleasant- 
 ness. " Ah, give your life for her, you say. 
 But it is none so Q&sy , figliuola mia, to give up 
 your life when it comes close to the doing of it. 
 Let's hope Lucia won't need it," he added, with 
 a grim chuckle that was meant to label his 
 words as a joke. 
 
 " Ah well, that depends on what your life is. 
 I icould have given my life for Lucia, though.
 
 92 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 Maybe " and Ninetta broke off abruptly, 
 
 busy in pursuing in the secret recesses of her 
 own heart the consideration of the question, 
 whether she would in truth now be equally 
 ready to sacrifice her life for her friend ; and if 
 not, why not ? 
 
 " Couldn't your father do any better for you 
 than to let you be beat by an old woman that 
 lived by finding marble chippings ? " said Tan- 
 credi, returning to the subject in the absence 
 of any other topic of conversation wherewith 
 to beguile the time till the appearance of the 
 procession at the bottom of the colonnade. 
 
 " I don't know that I ever had any father, 
 or mother either," replied Ninetta, quite as if 
 she were referring herself to a by no means 
 uncommon or unknown category of human 
 beings. " The furthest back I can remember, 
 I used to live with an old man and his wife, 
 who always told me that I had no father or 
 mother. I think he was a sexton of some 
 church, and his wife used to sweep and clean 
 the church. They both died pretty nearly at 
 the same time, when I was quite a little thing; 
 and then I had no place to go to, and nothing 
 in all the world but the clothes I had on me, 
 and a rosary of wooden beads with a little bone
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 93 
 
 crucifix hanging to it, which I had always worn 
 round my neck. I don't suppose it was worth 
 anything, or they would not have let me keep 
 it," said Ninetta, reflectively. 
 
 " And where do you live now ? " added the 
 buttero, after a short pause. 
 
 " With Siora Marta, a widow woman in the 
 Yia de Serpenti ; she works at the pearl-making, 
 and so does her daughter. Lucia found the 
 place for me. Siora Marta was an acquaintance 
 of hers. It is a very good quartiere, on the 
 fourth floor, you know ; and I have got a little 
 room all to myself," said Ninetta. 
 
 All the time the latter part of this dialogue 
 had been going on the buttero had unconsciously 
 retained in his hand Ninetta's rosary with the 
 little crucifix attached to it, dangling it to and 
 fro without thinking of it. But just then the 
 sound of the chanting, which had before reached 
 them, mingled with the ringing of bells, and 
 the occasional boom of the cannon from St. 
 Angelo, as a far-off indistinct murmur, became 
 suddenly louder and clearer, as the head of the 
 procession rounded the curve of the semicircular 
 colonnade, and in the next minute the advanced 
 guard of soldiers began to defile in front of the 
 little party standing at the foot of the last pier
 
 94 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 of it. Of course all conversations, even those of 
 a much more interesting nature than that be- 
 tween the buttero and Ninetta were suddenly- 
 broken off, and everybody faced about towards 
 the line of the procession, and stood on tiptoe, 
 and lived only in their eyes.
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 95 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 In the next minute the huge cross which opens 
 the purely ecclesiastical part of the procession 
 hove in sight, advancing very slowly, and then 
 the children and young men of the Papal schools 
 and hospitals. But this was not the inte- 
 resting, or indeed, it must be owned, a very 
 edifying, part of the show. The children 
 walked two and two, either chattering or 
 quarrelling with each other. One mischievous 
 urchin would try to hold his torch so as to 
 cause the wax to fall on the dress of the boy 
 who preceded him. Another would push 
 against his yoke-fellow, like an ill-broken 
 coach-horse leaning on the pole. This would 
 produce retaliating elbow nudges in the ribs 
 from the aggrieved party. Another, while 
 pretending, with a ludicrous attempt at assum- 
 ing a devout bearing, to be wholly engrossed
 
 96 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 by the proper business of the occasion, would 
 be slyly endeavouring to put bis feet on tbe 
 toes of bis neighbour ; and a fourth, from sheer 
 vacancy and inattention, would let his candle 
 fall into an almost horizontal position, dropping 
 the wax all about, and rapidly destroying the 
 torch. Every now and then some of the various 
 attendants whose business it was to see to the 
 decorous ordering of the procession, would 
 observe and reprove these offenders. But it 
 was remarkable that they did so in the most 
 perfunctory and plainly inefficacious manner, 
 appearing to be neither shocked, scandalized, 
 nor surprised in any way at such behaviour. 
 Nor did any of such improprieties appear to 
 excite the smallest degree of disapprobation, or 
 even to attract the attention of any person in 
 the crowd. 
 
 But then succeeded the long train of all the 
 different bodies of friars, and with them began 
 the interest of the sight. It was noticeable and 
 curious that these mendicant friars evidently 
 stood higher in the estimation of the crowd, 
 and were objects of greater interest to them, 
 than the members of the non-mendicant mo- 
 nastic bodies which followed them. As far as 
 regards any real title to respect, there can be
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 97 
 
 no doubt that the non-mendicant orders possess 
 more of it than the mendicants. They are less 
 grossly ignorant, less filthily dirty, less in the 
 habit of mischievously meddling with lay 
 affairs. Perhaps, however, all these differences 
 are the very causes which operate to produce 
 the greater popularity of the bare-footed Fran- 
 ciscan or Dominican. The Franciscan, however, 
 beats his rival, the Dominican, in the affections 
 of the populace. It is the son of St. Francis, 
 ignorant even of matters ecclesiastic or theo- 
 logic to a perfectly incredible degree, similar 
 in manners, in thoughts, and to a great degree 
 in habits to the lowest strata of the population, 
 often at war in his heart with constituted civil 
 authority, and even with all constituted eccle- 
 siastical superiors, save those of his own convent 
 and the Supreme Pontiff- — it is this democrat of 
 the Church that can very often most powerfully 
 influence the classes at the broad base of the 
 social pyramid. 
 
 Many of the poorest people among the crowd, 
 women especially, knelt as the monastic orders 
 moved past them, rising to their feet again 
 when the different bodies of the secular clergy 
 defiled from under the colonnade. 
 
 But it was not till the great dignitaries of 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 the Church came in view that the part of the 
 show for the sake of which the crowd had really 
 come there began. Then, indeed, the procession 
 became " as good as a play." There was no 
 symptom among the crowd of any feeling of 
 reverence, or of liking, or the reverse, for these 
 " purple princes " of Christendom. They were 
 regarded just as so many splendidly got-up 
 theatrical figures might have been stared at. 
 The prevailing sentiment was evidently one of 
 good humour, the result of being treated to a 
 diversion for which there was nothing to be 
 paid. 
 
 But it was not till the great chief actor in 
 the play hove in sight that the interest was at 
 its climax. At the first glimpse of the huge 
 machine borne aloft on men's shoulders, on 
 which the Pontiff seemed to kneel in an attitude 
 of the most devout and earnest prayer, the 
 whole of the crowd in the immediate vicinity 
 of the procession sunk on their knees. The 
 movement was so sudden and so general that 
 the effect produced was a singular one. It was 
 as if some irresistible simoom had passed over 
 the mass of human beings and prostrated them 
 all. This lasted, however, but for a very few 
 minutes. The gorgeous pageant passed on, the
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 99 
 
 crowd breathed again, rose to a standing posi- 
 tion, and forthwith returned to their chattering. 
 
 The time which had to elapse before the 
 huge procession had passed to the other side of 
 the piazza on its return to the church would 
 have appeared intolerably long to any one of 
 trans- Alpine race. But the Roman crowd passed 
 the hours in perfect and manifest contentment. 
 They had nothing to do — no demand on them 
 for any sort of exertion of body or mind ; a 
 lovely sky was overhead ; and they had un- 
 limited facilities for measureless talk. What 
 could be desired more ? And so the time 
 passed, till nearly at noon the vast cool-looking 
 cavernous mouth of the colossal church had 
 little by little swallowed up again all the multi- 
 tude that had that morning come forth from 
 it. And then the crowd began leisurely and 
 saunteringly to stroll away from the piazza. 
 
 In making the family arrangements for the 
 holiday pleasuring, it had been understood that 
 Uncle Tancredi, the well-to-do battero, invited 
 the whole party, including Signor Carlo Carena, 
 to an al fresco repast at a certain osteria situated 
 amid the vineyards between the convent of St. 
 Gregory and the Lateran, which was celebrated 
 for the goodness of its wine dei Castelli Romani,
 
 100 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 and where there was a beautiful pergola under 
 which they could have their banquet. A. pergola 
 is an arrangement of upright and horizontal poles 
 over which vines are trained, a most picturesque 
 mode of cultivating them, and affording a de- 
 licious shade to walk or to sit under. Uncle 
 Tancredi would have preferred dining in the 
 upstairs guest-chamber of the little osteria ; but 
 to the girls the eating al fresco was half the fun ; 
 and of course the young men thought that the 
 best and pleasantest which most pleased their 
 sweethearts. So when the piazza began to be 
 emptied, our friends prepared to move off to the 
 promised treat. Uncle Tancredi had not failed 
 to extend his invitation in very courteous terms 
 to Ninetta, when he found that she was there as 
 Lucia's friend. But poor Ninetta hardly knew 
 what to do about it. Her grand French lover, 
 who was to make her a contessa, had, as has been 
 seen, especially charged her to remain where she 
 was till he should come back to her. But she did 
 not like remaining there alone. And then the 
 promised dinner, at that season of the year when 
 dinners where so scarce with her, was a tempta- 
 tion that her young appetite could with difficulty 
 resist. And it would be so delightful, so utterly 
 paradisiacal under the pergola, out away there
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETES. 101 
 
 by the Lateran— as good every bit as being in 
 the country. And then, again, on the other 
 hand, she had seen the little party of French 
 troopers trotting away down the piazza as soon 
 as ever the procession had re-entered the 
 church. Whether her Hector had been with 
 them she had not been able to see, and she 
 hesitated painfully awhile whether she would go 
 with her friends or not. She looked wistfully 
 round the wide piazza, now nearly empty, and 
 saw nothing save a few lingering peasants and 
 Romans of her own station in life. The others 
 knew well enough what caused her hesitation, 
 but Uncle Tancredi, after his experience of the 
 morning, had delicacy enough to say no word 
 save reiterated assurances that she would be 
 most welcome if she would go with them. Lucia 
 whispered in her ear, " He won't come now. 
 Perhaps he can't. He is obliged to go with 
 the soldiers. You had better come with us ! " 
 
 Then Ninetta gulped down her disappoint- 
 ment, and tried to console herself with the 
 prospect of a dinner ; and they all walked off 
 together, Nanni and little Clelia, Carlo and 
 and the superb Lucia, duly paired, and Uncle 
 Tancredi and Ninetta — thus again forced into a 
 tete-a-tete.
 
 102 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 The little festa at the osteria behind the convent 
 of St. Gregory, on the hill just beyond the 
 Coliseum, was a great success. Four of the 
 party were enjoying some of the choicest of 
 those halcyon hours of which life has so few to 
 offer, and presents no second course of them. 
 Uncle Tancredi became expansive under the 
 influence of the good Velletri wine, and even 
 poor little Ninetta, feeding herself with golden 
 dreams of the future, permitted herself to enjoy 
 the good things of the present moment. 
 
 They had finished their dinner, and the men 
 had lighted their cigars, while the girls pre- 
 tended to take whiffs from them, going off into 
 paroxysms of coughing and laughter, when who 
 should make his appearance, quietly sauntering 
 out of the osteria, but Mr. Jenkins, the American 
 sculptor, otherwise Signor Chianquinsi.
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETEE. 103 
 
 " Well, it is odd enough that we should meet 
 a second time on such a day as this, and in such 
 a place," said he, coming up to the table at 
 which our friends were sitting ; "I take it as 
 a good omen that we shall hit it off together 
 to-morrow morning, friend Carena." 
 
 " I desire nothing better, Signore," said Carlo, 
 who had at first been a little bit inclined to fall 
 back into his suspicions again at this second 
 appearance of his Lucia's patron. He was re- 
 assured, however, by the absolute frankness and 
 absence of the smallest embarrassment on the 
 part of Lucia. " But it remains to be seen," he 
 added, " whether I shall be fortunate enough to 
 suit your excellency." 
 
 " Well, I think you will. Was it not you 
 who blocked out Signor Carelli's Psyche ? I 
 saw Carelli just after I parted from you this 
 morning; and I should like to put my work into 
 the hands of the man who did that piece of 
 work. Don't you think that we might as well 
 talk it over at once ? We don't lose time over a 
 bargain in my country." 
 
 " With all my heart," said Carena, " but we 
 are the guests here of Signor Tancredi," he 
 added, with a little embarrassment, and inclin- 
 ing his head in the direction of the butter o.
 
 104 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 " We shall be delighted if your worship will 
 take a seat with us. The wine is not bad, and 
 my niece here tells me that you have been very 
 kind to her," said Tancredi, with the ready 
 courtesy of a Roman peasant. 
 
 " Thank you, Signore Buttero," said Jenkins, 
 knowing well that the recognition of his host's 
 position in life would be felt to be compli- 
 mentary. " You have chosen a delightful place 
 for your merenda, and I shall be most happy to 
 be allowed to share it with you." 
 
 Then, after a little talk, in the course of which 
 terms between him and Carlo were arranged to 
 the entire satisfaction of both parties, the talk 
 became general ; and Jenkins showed his perfect 
 knowledge of Roman people and their ways by 
 joining in the bantering which was going on 
 upon the subject of the mutual relationship of 
 the two young couples, in a manner which 
 effectually cured Carlo of all tendency , to jea- 
 lousy. The American did not, however, so 
 readily understand what the position of Ninetta 
 was as regarded the others of the group. Had 
 so extremely pretty a girl as he perceived her to 
 be no lover, then ? A few indirect questions 
 brought out all the truth, somewhat to poor 
 Ninetta's confusion, yet somewhat to her
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 105 
 
 triumph also. At last the magnificent name 
 of Hector cle Rampont was elicited also ; and 
 thereupon Carlo Carena perceived that a singular 
 and sudden look of gravity and displeasure 
 came over the face of his future patron and 
 master, Signor Chianquinsi. None of the others 
 observed it, being less gifted with eye and 
 mind sight than the young sculptor's work- 
 man. 
 
 The rest of the afternoon, however, passed in 
 pleasant gossip enough, so that by the time the 
 buttero signified that the moment had come 
 when he and his must set out on their return 
 to their distant home, at the foot of the Alban 
 Hills, Signor Chianquinsi, as they all called 
 him, had become well acquainted with each 
 member of the party. 
 
 Now it was a long walk from the osteria 
 where they had been dining to Lucia's home in 
 the Trastevere ; and she and Carlo had looked 
 forward to the pleasure of the tete-a-tete to 
 which it would give occasion. But Signor 
 Chianquinsi did not seem inclined to quit them. 
 Civility forbade their telling him that they had 
 rather walk home by themselves : and so they 
 strolled away in the direction of the Coliseum 
 together. Once again Carlo felt a temptation
 
 106 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 to give way to jealousy rising in his mind. But 
 the American soon set it at rest, by indicating 
 very clearly that it was his companionship, and 
 not that of Lucia that he wanted. 
 
 He began by expressing his hope that Carlo 
 would remain with him, and spoke of the 
 excellence of the work he had done for Signor 
 Carelli. Then going on to talk in a friendly 
 manner of the young man's prospects and in- 
 terests, he asked him when he and Lucia were 
 to be made one, and said that he hoped the 
 arrangement which he had just concluded with 
 him might seem to him to justify their marriage 
 at an early day. 
 
 " Ah ! mio huono signor e" said Carlo, " if that 
 were all, Lucia and I would have made up our 
 minds to face the world together long since. 
 But how can we be married without her father's 
 consent, and how can we hope to get that ? 
 Signor Savelli," he added, looking back over 
 his shoulder to see that Lucia, who had rather 
 lackadaisically fallen a little to the rear while 
 the two men had been talking, was out of 
 hearing, and speaking with a bitter irony — 
 " Signor Savelli, it seems, has other views for 
 his daughter." 
 
 " But if I have my eyes in my head to see,
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 107 
 
 there is not much chance of the Signorina Lucia 
 changing her present views. -What objection 
 can her father make ? " 
 
 Then Carlo, again assuring himself that Lucia 
 could not overhear him, explained to him in 
 half a dozen words the real nature and cause 
 of that noble Roman's objection to give his 
 daughter to an honest workman, and of his 
 " views " respecting her, to the unmitigated 
 disgust and indignation of the American. And 
 so warm was his expression of it, that Carlo was 
 led on to justify what he had said by recounting 
 one or two cases in which to all appearance his 
 own intervention had succeeded in saving the 
 poor girl from finding herself in positions of 
 very painful difficulty and danger. 
 
 "Aha! oh, that was it, was it? Matters 
 begin to look a little more promising. I think 
 — I begin to think that we shall find the means 
 of bringing this excellent father to reason." 
 
 " I don't understand what your worship 
 means ? " said Carlo, who was quite mystified 
 by Signor Chianquinsi's incomprehensible ut- 
 terances. 
 
 " Well, what I mean is this. I am inclined 
 to think that a little word from the Yicar- 
 Gleneral might have great persuasive power
 
 108 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 with Signor Savelli. And I think that a 
 knowledge of such facts as you have been 
 telling me would induce the Yicar-Greneral to 
 speak that little word. That's all." 
 
 " The Yicar-Greneral ! Ay, like enough, if I 
 were some great gentleman, or only so much as 
 had a canonico for my brother or uncle. But 
 how is a poor artist to get speech with the 
 Yicar-Greneral ? " 
 
 " Well, I think I can promise to manage that 
 part of the matter for you," said Jenkins, speak- 
 ing in a slow and quiet tone of voice. " You 
 put down a clear statement of the story you 
 told me just now, on paper, and give it to me ,• 
 and, if I am not mistaken, I think we shall find 
 Signor Alessandro Savelli very shortly disposed 
 to hear reason." 
 
 Carlo was so profuse in the expressions of 
 his gratitude and delight, that Lucia, who 
 had been lagging behind not in the very best 
 humour with her friend Signor Chianquinsi, 
 perceived that something of interest had passed 
 between the two men, and stepped up, looking 
 from the face of one to the other. 
 
 " What is it, Carlo ? " she said ; " what has 
 Signor Chianquinsi been saying that has pleased 
 you so much ? "
 
 PIAZZA OF ST PETER. 109 
 
 Carlo felt some difficulty in answering her, 
 and looked towards the American. 
 
 " I have been telling my friend Carlo, that 
 if he could only manage to get the consent of 
 a certain young lady, I think I could manage 
 to get the consent of the young lady's father 
 to their being married as soon as they like." 
 
 " What young lady ! Carlo don't want to 
 be married to any young lady. What does it 
 mean ? Why don't you speak, Carlo ? Why 
 don't you tell him ? " said simple-minded, 
 straightforward Lucia, with twitching mouth 
 and flashing eyes, that seemed on the point of 
 bursting into tears. 
 
 " I thought he wanted to marry you," said 
 Jenkins very quietly. 
 
 " What does it all mean ? I am not a young 
 lady ! Do speak to me, Carlo," said the poor 
 girl, almost sobbing. 
 
 " Why, Lucia, you know I have no thought 
 but of you. When Signor Chianquinsi says a 
 young lady, he means you. There is no other 
 young lady or young woman of any sort in 
 question." 
 
 " Then what does Signor Chianquinsi mean 
 by your getting the consent of a young lady to 
 marry you ? " said Lucia, now palpably sobbing.
 
 JLlO A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 " What I mean is this," said that gentleman, 
 with his nsual quiet manner : "if you, Lucia 
 Savelli, are ready to make my friend Carlo here 
 a happy man, I think I can promise that your 
 father will give his consent to your marriage. 
 Is that clear enough ? " 
 
 " Madonna mia, sara vero ? Can it be true ? 
 How' is it possible ? You know my father, 
 then, Signore ? What a wonderful man ! Did 
 not I say, Carlo, that these Inglesi could do 
 things that our people can't do ; can do, in 
 short, anything they choose to do ? But it 
 can't be true ! " 
 
 " It can be true, and I think it will be true, 
 Signorina Lucia, if you will say the word. 
 Are you willing to marry Carlo as soon as you 
 have your father's permission to do so ? That's 
 all about it," returned Jenkins with a phleg- 
 matic manner, or the assumption of it, which 
 contrasted amusingly with the mobile, nervous 
 agitation of the Roman girl. 
 
 " Willing, Dio mio ! Carlo knows whether I 
 am willing. Oh, if it should only be true ! " 
 
 " My own darling Lucia ! Anima mia. Let 
 us thank our kind friend, the best friend we ever 
 had," said Carlo, taking the girl's willing hand. 
 
 " Thank him ! how can we ever thank him
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. Ill 
 
 enough ? It is too wonderful. Do you believe 
 it, Carlo ? Do you think he can make father 
 consent ? Is it possible ? " 
 
 " Certainly, I think — I hope so. Signor 
 Chianquinsi has reason to think that he will 
 succeed in doing so. But, indeed, indeed, sir," 
 said Carlo, with tears in his eyes and tears 
 in his voice, " Lucia says truly that we can 
 never thank you enough. All our happiness, 
 the happiness of our lives, will be due to you." 
 
 " Well, I hope it may turn out so. You and 
 Lucia wish to be married. I think I can find 
 the means of inducing your father to give his 
 consent. The rest is for your own considera- 
 tion. But when I joined you and the Signorina 
 Lucia just now in your walk home from the 
 osteina, I had it in my mind to speak to you 
 about another matter. Otherwise I should have 
 known better than to have spoiled your walk 
 with your sweetheart." 
 
 " 0, Signore, can you think " said Carlo, 
 
 blushing like a girl. 
 
 " To be sure. Do you take me for a fool or 
 a brute ? But now, look here, friend Carlo. 
 That pretty girl whom the Signorina Lucia had 
 with her this morning, and again at the osteria 
 — her friend — what is her name ? "
 
 112 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 "What is la Ninetta's real name, Lucia?" 
 asked Carlo. 
 
 "Assunta degl' Innocenti ; they call her 
 Ninetta for short," said Lucia. 
 
 " Poor child ! " said the American. " I heard 
 what you were all saying there under the 
 pergola, and — I am afraid that she will get 
 into trouble. Yes, I am ; and that is what I 
 wanted to speak to you about." 
 
 " What is it, Signore ? I believe her to be 
 a very good girl. Has she done anything 
 wrong ? I am sure if I or Lucia can help her 
 in any way we shall be most ready to do so. 
 But " 
 
 " This lover of hers. It so happens that I 
 know all about him very well. Done wrong ? 
 Poor silly little thing ! What she has done 
 wrong is to give her silly little heart to as big 
 a rascal as is within the walls of Pome, and 
 that is saying a great deal." 
 
 " A French officer, Mossoo Hector de Ram- 
 pont," said Carlo. 
 
 " He has promised to make Ninetta a 
 contessa," said Lucia. " For my part, I had 
 rather " 
 
 " Have an honest workman than a scoundrelly 
 gentleman, or one who calls himself such. I
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 113 
 
 should think so, indeed. But as for making 
 her a countess, he is about as likely to make 
 me Pope. Bah ! he has no thought of marrying 
 her, poor little fool ! " 
 
 " Madonna mia ! " ejaculated Lucia, " and she 
 so fond of him, and so proud of being his wife ! " 
 
 " His wife — pshaw ! You must make her 
 understand that he means nothing of the sort ; 
 that he would not even keep her as his mistress 
 long. I know all about him, and about a poor 
 girl whom he has just now abandoned, after 
 enticing her away from her home. He is a 
 regular bad lot." 
 
 "It will be no use telling her so," said Carlo, 
 " she will never believe it. She would say that 
 we were against him because he is one of the 
 French officers." 
 
 " And reason enough too," cried Lucia, with 
 her eyes flashing : "I have no patience with a 
 Roman girl who " 
 
 " That is all very well, Signorina Lucia," said 
 Jenkins quietly ; " but girls when they fall in 
 love are not always able to take an entirely 
 sound and unprejudiced view of men and things. 
 And now the question is how to save your friend 
 from this rascal, who has persuaded her to listen 
 to him." 
 
 TOL. I. I
 
 114 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 " Your worship says well. Yes, that is the 
 question," said Carlo, " and how can we persuade 
 her to listen to reason ? " 
 
 "Well, that is the difficulty," said the 
 American. " I say," he added, after thinking 
 for a minute or two, " do you know whether la 
 Ninetta can read ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Lucia, " I know she can. Her 
 business leaves her nothing to do almost all the 
 summer, and last summer with a little help 
 from an old priest, who lives in the same house, 
 she learned to read very well, even written 
 letters. And I know she has had letters from 
 her French lover, because she has shown them 
 to me, and once she read one to me — a beautiful 
 letter it was. To think that it could be written 
 by such a one as your worship says this man 
 is! 
 
 " "Well then, I'll tell you what we will do. 
 I will show her some other beautiful letters 
 written by this beautiful gentleman ; she will 
 see that they are signed by him, and she will 
 see that the hand- writing is the same. Or 
 perhaps it will be better that you should show 
 them to her, Signorina Lucia. I will go to the 
 unfortunate girl he has deceived and abandoned ; 
 and I make no doubt that I shall be able to get
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 115 
 
 some of these precious letters into my hands. 
 You come to the studio to-morrow morning, and 
 bring her with you. You had better not tell 
 her anything about the object of your coining. 
 You can get her to walk with you — she has 
 nothing to do in this weather. Then tell her 
 that you have to make an appointment with me, 
 and let her wait a few minutes in the workshop. 
 My friend Carlo will be there, you know; and 
 you come into the inner room to me." 
 
 " And your worship " — (vossignoria was the 
 word used, which has been so translated in these 
 pages, for want of a better equivalent ;) — " your 
 worship won't forget the other little matter 
 about Lucia's father ? " said Carlo, looking some- 
 what wistfully into the American sculptor's 
 face. 
 
 " Little matter ! " echoed Jenkins ; " why that 
 is the great matter of all. Never fear. I make 
 no doubt of putting all that to rights. The 
 person who will whisper a word in the ear of 
 the Cardinal-Governor is one not likely to be 
 disregarded. I wish we were only as sure of 
 setting this poor pretty fool of a Ninetta free of 
 her rascally Frenchman. And now my friends 
 a rivederci. You will come to the studio at six 
 to-morrow morning, Carlo, and we'll get to v^ork
 
 116 A FAMILY PARTY IN THE 
 
 at once. And you, Signorina, will come as 
 soon as you can bring la Ninetta with you. 
 And perhaps we will have a sitting for the 
 'America' afterwards." 
 And so the trio parted.
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 117 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The next morning after that festival of the 
 Corpus Domini that was so memorable a one 
 to most of the little party who have been 
 introduced to the reader, Mr. Jenkins, alias 
 Signor Chianquinsi, was up and at his studio 
 before Carlo had reached it. The first hours 
 after sunrise, as the last before his setting, are 
 the golden hours of an Italian summer day, and 
 the American sculptor was a sufficiently " old 
 Roman " to have learned to profit by and enjoy 
 them. He had spoken a few words to the work- 
 man whose duty it was to be there before him 
 and to open the studio, and was sitting on an 
 old sofa placed against the wall under the 
 northern window, immediately in front of which 
 was the clay on which Signor Jenkins was at 
 that time employed. He had not, however, yet 
 lifted from it the wet cloths, which covered the
 
 118 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 clay, the careful removal of which was always 
 the sculptor's first care on arriving at his studio ; 
 but was engaged in arranging some letters, 
 spread out on the sofa by his side, and reading 
 certain passages of them here and there, which 
 he was marking with a pencil. 
 
 Presently there was a knock at the door of 
 the inner studio, in which the sculptor was 
 sitting, and in answer to his avanti (forwards), 
 a head was advanced between the half-open door 
 and the doorpost, and a " permesso ? " uttered 
 in Carlo's robust tenor voice. 
 
 " Come in, friend Carlo. You've brought the 
 Signorina Lucia with you, I hope. Ay, there 
 she is. Come in, both of you. You see I have 
 not forgotten what I promised. As for your 
 own affair, Signorina Lucia" — (the American 
 was very punctilious with his " Signorina ; " an 
 Italian would have called the girl by some 
 abbreviated nickname ; so, probably, Jenkins 
 might have done, had she been other than so 
 superbly beautiful) — "as to your affair, you may 
 consider that as good as settled. It will be so 
 in the course of to-day. When you ask your 
 father's permission to marry our friend here, 
 you will find that the request will be very 
 graciously received, and the paternal permission
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 119 
 
 and blessing granted. But now as to this 
 business of that poor unhappy little Ninetta. 
 I have got the loan of the letters — not without 
 some difficulty, I can tell you — and here they 
 are. I want you, you know, to shew them to 
 her." 
 
 " But I can read but very little, Signore mio ; 
 that is, as yet," said Lucia, with a glance at 
 Carlo, as she put in the last qualifying clause — 
 " and how shall I know ? " 
 
 "I have thought of all that," said Mr. 
 Jenkins. "Look here, I have marked the pas- 
 sages you must point out to her with a red 
 pencil. She will read them ; she will read 
 them to you, no doubt ; and then you will 
 understand it all, and will speak to her your 
 own feeling upon the matter ; and I am sure 
 that I could say nothing better than you will 
 say. And it will come better from you." 
 
 " I will try to persuade her all I can, Signore; 
 that you may be sure of," returned Lucia ; " but 
 does not your worship think that it would be 
 best for you .to speak to her yourself too. She 
 will think so much more of what you say." 
 
 "Well, I will try my hand. But I think 
 you had better begin it. Now, look here. In 
 this letter he makes her predecessor exactly
 
 120 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 the same promises that he has made to Ninetta. 
 She is to be his wife, and Countess de Rampont. 
 She is to go and be mistress of his ancestral 
 castle, and all the rest of it. Then come all the 
 same excuses for not marrying her immediately ; 
 the same difficulties in the way, the same put- 
 ting off the happy day until after the death of 
 an uncle, who is in fact dying, and whose death 
 he expects to hear of by every post. I wonder 
 to how many other girls he has told the same 
 lies. He makes no variation at all — repeats it 
 all as if it were a printed form. Well, then the 
 unfortunate girl believes it all, and suffers her- 
 self to be persuaded by him, gives herself up to 
 him. Then for a little while — a very little 
 while — the letters contain but a few words each, 
 mere appointments for meeting. But let her 
 read them and mark the tone of them. No 
 more of the pretty talk that cheated the poor 
 little fool, and cozened her heart out of her. 
 Mere orders to meet him. Then very, very 
 soon the gentleman gets tired of his new con- 
 quest ; here are letters putting off meetings, not 
 a word of explanation or apology. Till at last 
 we come to the shameful, brutal end of the 
 story, in this letter, telling his victim that he 
 wants nothing more of her — that circumstances
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 121 
 
 have changed in a manner that must put an 
 end to anything further between them ; it is of 
 no use for her to come to the lodgings he used 
 to occupy, for he is on the point of leaving 
 them, and for her own sake she had better not 
 make any attempt to find him out. Ah ! " 
 concluded Signor Chianquinsi, drawing a very 
 long breath through his teeth, " I think I must 
 allow myself the luxury of giving that fellow 
 a beating somehow or other, one of these days. 
 The danger would be that one would murder 
 the brute from the impossibility of making up 
 one's mind to leave off. Well, what do you 
 say to such a gentleman as that, and his love, 
 and his letters, eh, Signorina Lucia ? " 
 
 " Che vuola chi si dica I What would you 
 that one should say ? " replied Lucia, using the 
 common popular form of stating a nonplus. 
 " No doubt, when la Ninetta shall have been 
 made to understand that those letters were 
 written by her damo to another girl, she will 
 have no more to say to him." 
 
 " I should think so, indeed. Let us hope so,' 
 said the sculptor. 
 
 " If she should do otherwise," put in Carlo, 
 " she would not be worthy of any further 
 thought from your worship ; and I am sure
 
 122 A FAMILY PARTY IN TEE 
 
 I should not wish a wife of mine to call her 
 her friend." 
 
 " You will not find that she will do so," said 
 Jenkins, with a sententious nod of the head. 
 
 So Lucia went off to meet poor little Ninetta, 
 who was near at hand, little guessing the grief 
 and desperate mortification that awaited her, 
 poor child ! 
 
 Very soon the two girls came back together, 
 Ninetta chatting gayly, and evidently mystified 
 by her companion's reticent and embarrassed 
 air. 
 
 Carlo opened the door of the studio to them, 
 and then, having briefly saluted Ninetta, sud- 
 denly withdrew into the inner studio, where 
 Mr. Jenkins was, leaving the two girls alone in 
 the outer room. 
 
 The sculptor asked him by a silent motion of 
 the head and eyes, whether Ninetta were come, 
 and he answered in the same manner by a 
 glance at the door. They continued in silence, 
 and in a very few minutes began to hear the 
 ordinarily silver voice of Ninetta rising to tones 
 of shrill expostulation and anger. Then, after 
 another pause of silence, there was a sound 
 of sobbing and wailing, in which both girls 
 seemed to be joining ; and then, after a while, the
 
 PIAZZA OF ST. PETER. 12 
 
 murmuring of a long conversation sufficiently- 
 protracted to try the patience of the sculptor 
 and his workman, who were awaiting the issue. 
 At last Jenkins opened the door, and went and 
 sat himself on the old sofa by the side of the 
 still silently weeping Ninetta. He took her 
 hand in his, and set about the work of consoling 
 her as best he knew how. 
 
 It was not an easy task ; for many feelings, 
 all of them deeply wounded and mortified, were 
 seething and struggling together in the poor 
 girl's breast. There was disappointed love, 
 though that probably was not the deepest 
 wound ; there was outraged pride ; there was 
 humiliation in the eyes of her friends and com- 
 panions ; there was the destruction of high 
 hopes. It was very bitter. And Signor 
 Chianquinsi had an arduous task. But he 
 persevered with it, persevered with it so long, 
 that Lucia and Carlo, finding themselves ap- 
 parently de trqp, stole off into the other room, 
 minded to attend to their own affairs. 
 
 I do not think that Signor Chianquinsi 
 altogether completed the work of consolation 
 upon that occasion. But that he was fully 
 successful before he left off may be inferred 
 from the fact that la Ninetta now calls herself
 
 124 A FAMILY PARTY. 
 
 la Signora Chianquinsi, never having been 
 able to learn any other mode of pronouncing 
 her husband's name ; though she has learned 
 many things and is still an exceedingly popular 
 and admired personage in the artist world of 
 Rome, and an acknowledged ornament of the 
 peculiar artistic society of the Eternal City.
 
 GIULIA VARANI ; OR, ST. PETERS 
 DAY AT BELLUNO.
 
 GIULIA VARANI ; OR, ST. PETER'S 
 DAY AT BELLUNO. 
 
 It was barely four o'clock in the morning ; but 
 the inmates of a certain house in the Borgo 
 Garibaldi at Belluno were already astir ; for 
 it was the morning of a great " festa," the 
 29th of June, and nothing less than the fes- 
 tival of St. Peter himself. A great day in 
 primitive little Belluno ! For, though the 
 Italians in general are beginning to think 
 much less of such things than they did some 
 ten or twenty years ago, the mountaineers of 
 the slopes and valleys on the southern side 
 of the Alpine wall are a pious and primitive 
 race ; and old habits, old feelings, old ideas, 
 and old reverence still linger among them. 
 The inmates of the house in question were on
 
 128 GIULIA VARANI; OR, 
 
 the first-floor, and in garrets above it : Stefano 
 Barilli, well-to-do master mason and owner of a 
 quarr y ; his wife Assunta ; their three children, 
 aged ten, eleven, and thirteen ; Griulia Varani, 
 Assunta's unmarried sister ; and a maid-servant. 
 The ground-floor of the building was occupied 
 as the workshop of the mason. The house, it 
 will be seen, was a small one, consisting only 
 of ground-floor, first-floor, and garrets under 
 the roof. But it was a solid well-built tene- 
 ment, mainly constructed of stone ; and it was 
 large enough to house the stone-mason's family 
 in all comfort and without any undue crowding. 
 The inmates were already astir, I have said ; 
 but I should have said some of them. Master 
 Stefano himself was still snoring. Not that 
 Stefano Barilli was ordinarily a lazy fellow or 
 a bad workman. Far from it. But that 29th 
 of June was a great " festa." And that, you 
 see, was friend Stefano's idea of " looking like 
 the time." He got up at four in the morning 
 on work-days. What was a " festa " for, if he 
 was to do the same thing then as every other 
 day ? And then, as for the morning mass at 
 the cathedral- — well, Master Stefano was a very 
 good Catholic, and thought morning mass an 
 excellent thing — for the women. But, like the
 
 st. peter's day at belluno. 129 
 
 majority of his countrymen, he was rather apt 
 to consider such religious observances to belong 
 to the female department of life. So Assunta, 
 like a good wife as she was, had silently stolen 
 away from her bed, leaving her husband to 
 enjoy his extra hours of rest, and had gone 
 to complete her " festa " toilette in the chamber 
 of her sister Griulia, who was busily engaged in 
 the same operation. The children, too, who 
 occupied three beds in a room contiguous to 
 that of their parents, had not been awakened. 
 For Assunta was an indulgent mother. They 
 were sleeping so sweetly, the poor little dar- 
 lings ; and it would be time enough to get 
 them up when she and Griulia returned from 
 mass. The servant-gir] was up and dressed, 
 and ready to go out to market to make the 
 daily " spese ; " but had been told by Assunta 
 to remain in the house till her return from the 
 cathedral, in case the children should wake. 
 
 The two sisters were, as has been said, busy 
 with their toilette, and with sisterly assistance 
 of each other ; but half a glance would have 
 sufficed to show that they were busy with a 
 difference. Both were still young women ; for 
 though Assunta was the mother of a girl 
 of thirteen, she was only just thirty years 
 
 VOL. i. k
 
 130 GIULIA VARANI; OR, 
 
 old ; and Griulia was seven years her junior. 
 Both had considerable pretensions to good looks. 
 Griulia, indeed, was — or, young as she was, per- 
 haps it would be more correct to say, had been 
 — one of the leading beauties of Belluno. And 
 Assunta, though never as handsome as her 
 sister, was still comely, and had evidently 
 been a very pretty woman in her day. In 
 Assunta's case, the "had been" was in due 
 course of nature, alas. For if beauty is ever 
 a fleeting flower, it fleets and fades with ter- 
 ribly extra swiftness among the Southern races, 
 and especially so among the dwellers in the 
 mountain districts. So, though both sisters 
 were busy, they were busy with a difference. 
 
 Griulia was very evidently putting her whole 
 heart into the task before her. But Assunta, 
 though seconding by assistance and advice 
 her sister's operations, seemed to be scarcely 
 contented in doing so ; and would now and 
 then pause to look at Griulia's progress with 
 a half-suppressed sigh, and an almost imper- 
 ceptible shake of the head. It was not that 
 the sister, the morning radiance of whose 
 beauty had faded, had any the faintest feeling 
 of jealousy of the younger woman. It was 
 not that. Though Griulia was evidently bent
 
 st. peter's day at belluno. 131 
 
 on dressing herself with care, it was at least 
 equally evident that the task brought little 
 of happiness or contentment with it. And 
 it would have been easy to guess that in the 
 same cause which was taking all the pleasant- 
 ness out of what should be a labour of love 
 to a young girl of three and twenty, was to 
 be found the explanation of poor Griulia's so 
 prematurely faded beauty. But to make this 
 explanation duly intelligible, it is necessary 
 to tell, as briefly as may be, a few of the facts 
 of her short previous history. 
 
 At the bottom of what we may call the High 
 Street of Belluno, near the spot where the little 
 city is entered from the north by a bridge over 
 the river Piave, there is a well-frequented inn 
 called the Longarone Inn. Longarone is a 
 small town about twelve miles from Belluno, 
 situated also on the Piave, higher up in its 
 course. The Piave is a somewhat noisy, ill- 
 conducted, and brawling, but, on the whole, a 
 hard-working, little river. It is too irregular 
 and wild in its habits to permit of navigation of 
 any sort being entrusted to it ; but it turns 
 more saw-mills in the course of its career than 
 most streams, and in this manner earns a good 
 deal of money. Longarone is one of the centres
 
 132 GIULIA VARANI; OR, 
 
 of the business arising from this industry ; and 
 the intercourse between that little town and 
 Belluno, the capital of the province, is accord- 
 ingly considerable ; and the Longarone Inn, 
 just over the bridge at Belluno, was conse- 
 quently a good and thriving property ; and the 
 owner and landlord of it, Griuseppi Morini, was 
 well known to be a warm man. But he was 
 not a very popular man at Belluno. In the first 
 place, he was a widower ; and there had been 
 disagreeable stories connected with the death 
 of his wife. To say the least of it, Griuseppi 
 Morini was known to have been a bad and 
 unkind husband. In the second place, he was 
 equally well known to be no true liberal. He 
 was a " codino," a regretter of the former order 
 of things in Church and State ; and was sup- 
 posed to be a creature, and perhaps a spy, of 
 the bishop, who was the ground landlord of the 
 house leased to him as an inn. Now, Belluno is 
 very patriotic, very liberal, and the bishop, said 
 to have been specially sent there by Eome, be- 
 cause the Bellunesi needed a strong-handed 
 prelate over them in Church matters, was not a 
 whit more popular in the diocese than the land- 
 lord of the Longarone Inn. Into the bargain, 
 Griuseppi Morini was a hard, ill-tempered, 
 violent, and disagreeable man.
 
 st. peter's day at belluno. 133 
 
 Now, this unpleasant but well-to-do innkeeper 
 had a son, who apparently had not been able to 
 get on with his father any better than the rest 
 of the world of Belluno. For young Carlo 
 Morini had, notwithstanding the vehement 
 opposition of his father, left his home when 
 Garibaldi was collecting volunteers to fight 
 against the Austrians in the Tyrol, and had 
 donned the red shirt. Small as were the 
 strategical results of that campaign in the Tyrol, 
 the Graribaldians reaped a rich harvest of glory ; 
 and young Morini was understood to have 
 merited and received for his conduct at the 
 attack of a certain impregnable Austrian fort 
 the special and personal commendations of the 
 leader who was the idol of all Italy. Thus he, 
 for his share, returned to his native mountain 
 city a hero in the eyes of his fellow citizens, 
 and specially, inasmuch as he was as good-look- 
 ing a young fellow as ever wore the red shirt, 
 of his fellow citizenesses ; of all the town, 
 indeed, with the few "codino" exceptions, 
 which would have signified nothing at all had 
 not one of the exceptions been the young Grari- 
 baldian's own father. Griuseppi Morini simply 
 shut his door in his son's face, and told him to 
 carry his red shirt elsewhere, for that none who
 
 134 QIULIA VARANI; OR, 
 
 had worn that livery should ever darken his 
 doors. Now, as poor Carlo Morini had little 
 else save his red shirt to carry anywhere else, 
 this was a pity ; the more so, as it did not seem 
 at all clear how the young Graribaldian, who, as 
 the son of a rich man, had never been brought 
 up to any bread-winning pursuit, was to get his 
 living. Fortunately, he had an uncle in the 
 town, a brother of his mother, who had long since 
 ceased to have any communication with Griuseppi 
 Morini, his brother-in-law ; and this uncle gave 
 him a home for the nonce. Pietro Porta — that 
 was the uncle's name — held some small employ- 
 ment under the Municipality ; and, though an old 
 bachelor, was much too poor a man to be able 
 to support his nephew in idleness, even if Carlo 
 would have consented to be so supported. But 
 the young man had no wish or intention of the 
 sort. He accepted the shelter of his uncle's 
 home only till he should be able to look about 
 him, and find some way of earning his own 
 bread. He did look about, and after some little 
 time did obtain a position as half-foreman, half- 
 overlooker in a saw-mill at Perarolo, a little 
 town on the Piave, about seven miles above 
 Longarone. But while looking about he had 
 among other places looked into Griulia Yarani's
 
 st. peter's day at belluno. 135 
 
 dark hazel eyes, and incontinently fallen des- 
 perately in love with her. Of course, many 
 pretty tales might be told of their meetings and 
 flirtings, and vows and quarrels ; but I promised 
 to make the story as short a one as I possibly 
 could, and therefore merely state the facts of the 
 case in the nakedest manner. Griulia, of course, 
 fell just as much in love with Carlo as Carlo did 
 with her. It was not likely that she should 
 abstain from doing so. Nevertheless, the course 
 of true love did not run any smoother with 
 them than it is said to be generally in the 
 habit of running. 
 
 In short, of all the things that he could have 
 looked on, in the whole valley of the Piave, the 
 very worst that his eyes could have fallen on 
 was the pretty face and trim figure of beautiful 
 Griulia Yarani. And for Griulia herself, it would 
 have been well for her — and, indeed, for himself 
 too — if an Austrian bullet had cut short Carlo's 
 career under that same Tyrolean fortress. 
 
 The case was a hopeless one from the first. 
 Even if Carlo, instead of quarrelling irremedi- 
 ably with his cross-grained father, had been safe 
 to inherit the old man's money and the inn, 
 Stefano Barilli would have been exceedingly 
 unwilling that his family should have become
 
 ]36 OIULIA VARANI; OR, 
 
 closely united to that of one so ill-conditioned 
 and so ill looked on as the innkeeper. Such 
 matters are thought much of in small and 
 primitive communities, such as that in which 
 these two men lived. Carlo came, as the highly 
 respectable and respected stonemason urged, of 
 a bad stock. And Master Stefano, as provincial 
 folk, who have lived all their lives in a small 
 town, knowing everybody in it and nobody out 
 of it, are apt to be, was very strong in his 
 sentiments in the matter of " stocks." But as 
 the case stood — why, the young man was a 
 beggar, and would be lucky if he could find the 
 means of putting an honest crust into his own 
 mouth, let alone those of a wife and family. 
 An ex-Garibaldian too ! Yes, Liberty, Glory, 
 Patriotism ! Yery fine things, no doubt. He 
 himself, Master Stefano, hoped, and dared to 
 say, he was as good a patriot as any in Belluno. 
 And he much admired the brave young fellows 
 who had gone a-soldiering with Garibaldi. But 
 — as for marrying, he thought that glory and 
 wives did not go well together. Give him an 
 honest hardworking citizen for a brother-in-law. 
 And then, for a fellow without a soldo in the 
 world, or the prospect of having one as far as 
 he could see, to think of making up to Giulia
 
 ST PETER'S DAY AT BELLUNO. 137 
 
 Varani ! to his sister-in-law ! — not if he knew it. 
 Master Stefano thought he knew the world 
 rather better than that came to. 
 
 Thus Master Stefano had finally and firmly 
 settled in his own mind that there was nothing, 
 could be nothing, and never should be anything, 
 between Carlo Morini and his sister-in-law 
 G-iulia. And difficult as it was at all times to 
 get anything into Master Stefano's head, it was 
 ten times more difficult to get it out again when 
 once it had got in. And as for Assunta, feel- 
 ing, as a good wife should, that nobody on earth 
 could be so wise, so prudent, and so generally 
 right as her husband, she whole-heartedly fol- 
 lowed his lead and did her utmost to second his 
 opposition to Carlo's love-making. Now, legally 
 the stonemason and his wife had not the smallest 
 right to control Griulia's actions in this matter. 
 But those know little of Italian social life who 
 imagine that a good and decent girl in Giulia's 
 position could or would venture to act in such a 
 matter in the teeth of the wishes and commands 
 of an elder brother-in-law and sister who had 
 for the last fourteen years stood to her in the 
 place of parents. Poor Giulia never dreamed 
 of any such disreputable rebellion. Nor, indeed, 
 did it occur to Carlo to urge her to take such a
 
 138 QIULIA VABANI; OB, 
 
 desperate step. It was too much out of the 
 ordinary course of things, and too certain to be 
 visited with the highest censure and indignation 
 on the part of every one of those who made up 
 the world they lived in. 
 
 Thus when, some six years or so before that 
 beautiful June morning,, Carlo Morini had gone 
 off to his work at Perarolo, after more than one 
 stolen interview and tender adieu, and the ex- 
 change of many vows between him and Griulia, 
 Stefano and Assunta had flattered themselves 
 that there was an end of the matter, and that 
 so pretty a girl as Griulia would be assuredly 
 persuaded to listen to some more desirable lover 
 long before Carlo could come back again, if, 
 indeed, he should ever wish to remind her of 
 her promises. But the Piave, which is, as has 
 already been mentioned, a wild and reckless, 
 and occasionally very ill-behaved river, had in 
 the spring preceding the June of which I have 
 been speaking, indulged itself in a regular out- 
 break and spree — with the result of destroying 
 several mills, and among them that in which 
 Carlo Morini worked, in Perarolo ; and the 
 consequence of this was that that young man 
 had been spending the last two months in his 
 uncle's house in Belluno. But the mill had by
 
 st. peter's day at belluno. 139 
 
 the last week in June been got once more into 
 working order, and Carlo found himself under 
 the necessity of returning to his work at Pera- 
 rolo. The great " festa " of St. Peter's Day 
 was to be his last in Belluno, and he was to 
 start on his return to Perarolo on the morrow. 
 
 And now, perhaps, the judicious reader will 
 be able to understand — and I hope will not 
 think that I have been too long in explaining 
 — why it was that on that 29th of June, before 
 starting for the early five-o'clock mass at the 
 cathedral, Griulia Yarani, though doing her 
 best to make the most of the resources of her 
 wardrobe, hung her pretty head and sighed 
 sadly from time to time, as she proceeded 
 with her task ; why it was that the full con- 
 tour of the once peach-like cheek had lost its 
 bloom, its colour, and its roundness ; and why 
 the decking of herself in her best had rather 
 the air of preparing a victim for the sacrifice 
 than adorning a fancy-free maiden for a festal 
 morning. 
 
 Had the question been put to her, she would 
 have said, and truly said, that she could not 
 tell why or with what motive she was adorn- 
 ing herself. She had promised, poor girl, 
 to manage so as to give her lover one more
 
 140 QIULIA VARANI; OR, 
 
 secret meeting. But it was to be the last — 
 was -understood and admitted on both sides to 
 be so. There was no hope for them. What 
 hope could there be ? Carlo must leave Bel- 
 luno or starve. Whatever heartbreak the 
 separation might bring with it, separate they 
 must. What was the use or object of this 
 last meeting ? None who have ever loved in 
 vain will ask the question. No good could 
 come of it assuredly. It was certain that to 
 both Carlo and Griulia it would but be the occa- 
 sion of additional misery — of a climax of agony. 
 And yet both would have deemed themselves 
 to be stricken by Fate with a cruel additional 
 misfortune had circumstances occurred to make 
 that meeting impossible. 
 
 At last, after many protestations from 
 Assunta that they would be late at the mass, 
 Giulia declared herself to be ready, and the 
 two women issued forth from the house in 
 the Borgo Garibaldi, and, carefully shutting 
 the door of it behind them, turned towards 
 the centre of the little city on their way to the 
 cathedral. 
 
 The inhabitants of mountain districts, how- 
 ever uncultured, have very generally a more 
 awakened sense of the beauties of the scenes
 
 st. peter's day at belluno. 141 
 
 amid which they live than denizens of the 
 plains. But it would have been difficult for 
 any human being with eyes to see, not to 
 feel admiration for the scene which lay before 
 the two sisters as they emerged from the long 
 and somewhat narrow street called the Borgo 
 Garibaldi on to the chief piazza of the city. 
 Yery few towns of any country in Europe 
 are situated in a position of so much beauty 
 as Belluno, and none can surpass it in this 
 respect. The stream of the Piave, which 
 during the whole of its previous course has 
 been running through a narrow rock-bound 
 ravine, when it nears Belluno changes its 
 character. No longer a brawling torrent, it 
 pursues a somewhat winding way through a 
 wide and fertile vale, over the whole expanse 
 of which the city looks from its seat upon 
 one of the lowest slopes of the mighty range 
 of dolomite peaks that shut in the happy 
 valley on either side. All below is smiling 
 verdure, and fields, and herds, basking in a 
 light which of itself makes all it shines on 
 beautiful. All around and above stand the 
 giant warders, the inaccesible peaks, which 
 with their wonderful jagged outline seem to 
 shut out all the world beyond. It is a scene of
 
 142 GIUL1A VARANI; OR, 
 
 truly wondrous beauty ; and at that hour of 
 the midsummer morning, as the first rays of 
 the sun came peeping slantingly across the 
 snow-topped barrier, projecting a rose-coloured 
 bloom on the snow-fields and pale grey crags, 
 and gilding all they fell on in the valley, the 
 heart must have been dull indeed that did not 
 feel the exquisite loveliness of all that met the 
 eye. 
 
 The two women paused for a moment, as they 
 crossed the piazza, to gaze on the loveliness 
 spread out beneath their eyes ; but the matin 
 bell of the cathedral, booming its summons 
 through the still air of a morning that seemed 
 to promise a glorious but blazing day, forbade 
 them to linger longer. 
 
 " They are cutting a sight of grain down the 
 valley," said Assunta. " Well, thanks to St. 
 Peter and the Blessed Yirgin, there could not 
 be finer weather for it. Come along, Giulia ! " 
 
 And they crossed the piazza, and were 
 passing in front of that fine old specimen 
 of Venetian architecture, which, while now 
 serving the Province for the official residence 
 of its Prefect, * recalls the days when Venice 
 was the lord of all these valleys and moun- 
 tains, when Giulia said suddenly —
 
 st. peter's day at belluno. 143 
 
 "Go on, Assunta ; I will follow you in half a 
 minute ; but I must remind old Niccolo the 
 carbonaio to send us a basket of charcoal this 
 morning, or Stefano will be like to find no 
 dinner cooked at noon. And if I don't catch 
 the old man now, he will be out on his rounds 
 before we come out of church." 
 
 And without giving her sister time to utter a 
 word of objection or remonstrance, Griulia turned 
 suddenly round on her heel and disappeared 
 round the corner of the small narrow lane which 
 runs down by the side of the old Venetian 
 palace, the elaborately carved and cunningly 
 fitted stones of which, as perfect then as they 
 had been left by the mason's hand four hun- 
 dred years ago, were so soon to be rudely 
 shaken from their places ! 
 
 Now it was true that this care for the supply 
 of the charcoal necessary for the preparation for 
 the festa dinner fell within Giulia's recognized 
 department in the mason's household. And it 
 was also true that old Niccolo the carbonaio 
 lived down that lane, and undeniable that later 
 in the day it might be hard to catch him. But 
 then it was equally true, as Assunta did not fail 
 to remember at that moment, that Pietro Porta, 
 Carlo Morini's uncle, also dwelt in that same
 
 144 GIULIA VARANI; OR, 
 
 narrow and little-frequented thoroughfare. And 
 the remembrance caused Assunta to shake her 
 head and look doubtfully after her sister as she 
 disappeared round the corner. For a minute 
 she stood undecided whether it would not be 
 better to follow her. And, as is so frequently 
 the case when decisions which seem to hang 
 upon the turning of a hair are afterwards seen 
 to be pregnant with the most momentous con- 
 sequences, Assunta would have afterwards been 
 quite unable to tell what the considerations were 
 that, turning the wavering balance to one side 
 rather than the other, decided her to continue 
 her way to the cathedral, and not to interfere 
 with her sister's movements. Such, however, 
 was the course she took, and in another couple 
 of minutes she entered the great western door 
 of the church and joined the congregation — a 
 larger one than usual on the festal morning — 
 which was gathered to hear mass in front not 
 of the high altar, but of one of those which 
 terminate the lateral aisles of the building. 
 
 Griulia, as soon as ever she was sure that the 
 corner of the Palazzo hid her from her sister's 
 sight, sped down the lane with the fleetness and 
 the lightness of a lapwing, passed the shop of 
 Niccolo the carbonaio without a thought of the
 
 st. peter's day at belluno. 145 
 
 cooking at home, and paused not till she stood 
 breathless in a little dark entry at the further 
 end of the lane, where, in about a dozen of 
 seconds, she was joined by a young man who 
 came bounding down a stair at the further end 
 of the passage. 
 
 " My own darling ! " said Carlo, after the 
 usual preliminaries, as the chroniclers of official 
 meetings have it, " My own sweet Giulia ! I 
 knew you would come ; you would not let me 
 go without one word of farewell ; and there 
 was no other way but this ! " 
 
 " Of course I came ! And of course you knew 
 that I should come. I could not — no, I could 
 not part for ever without telling you, Carlo — 
 without telling you " 
 
 The poor little swelling heart could contain 
 itself no further ; and, dropping her head on his 
 bosom, Giulia broke down in a convulsion of 
 sobs. 
 
 " Anima mia ! " said Carlo, pressing her head 
 against his heart, " why did we ever meet ? 
 Why did I ever see you or speak to you, for this 
 misery to come upon us ! " 
 
 " Don't say that, Carlo," sobbed Giulia ; " then 
 I should never have loved anybody, and — 
 and " 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 QIULIA VARANI; OB, 
 
 Here a fresh outburst of sobbing stifled her 
 utterance. 
 
 " My own darling ! It is too hard, too cruel!" 
 said Carlo, bitterly distressed, but with a bana- 
 lite that marked the inferiority of the mannish 
 nature to that of the girl, who, even in the 
 extremity of her hopeless sorrow, preferred to 
 have and to have had the love that made her 
 sorrow, rather than never to have known the 
 object of it. 
 
 " I shall love you always, Carlo — always to 
 the last day of my life. I shall never, never 
 care about anybody else. And now we must 
 part for the last time — now — now ! For I must 
 go. Assunta is waiting for me. I told her I 
 should be gone only a minute." 
 
 " One more minute, my own G-iuKa. I have 
 said nothing to you. And I had so much to 
 say. I may write to you ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " It would be of no use. I should never be 
 allowed to get your letters. No, we shall never 
 see each other again, and I shall never hear 
 your voice again." 
 
 " Oh, Giulia, Griulia ! Surely things must 
 change ! If we can but have patience to wait ! " 
 
 " Patience ! What time would I not wait ?
 
 st. peter's day at belluno. 147 
 
 Have I not waited ? But it is no use — no use ! 
 You will find some other girl to love you. Yes, 
 you will, of course you will. But I don't think 
 I shall hear or know anything about it, Carlo. 
 They will find that they have given me my 
 death. I shan't live long, Carlo. You will see 
 I shall not have to bear what I am now bearing 
 for long ; the blessed Virgin is too good to let 
 me. I know that I shall not be here for long, 
 Carlo. And now, tesoro mio, give me one kiss, 
 one last kiss, the last — the last for ever, and let 
 me go ! 
 
 " Giulia, you are breaking my heart ! " said 
 Carlo as he formed his lips to hers. 
 
 " May God and the good Virgin bless you, 
 Carlo, and make you happy ! I will try to wish 
 that you may be happy in loving some girl less 
 unfortunate than your poor Giulia. Adieu ! 
 Farewell ! Farewell for ever ! The last must 
 come I 
 
 As she spoke she turned in his arms to leave 
 him. But he still held her pressed to his 
 heart. 
 
 " Hear my last words, Giulia, and remember 
 them. I swear by all a man can swear by that 
 I will never love any but you ; never forget you ; 
 never cease waiting for you ; never give up the
 
 148 GIULIA VARANI; OR, 
 
 hope that the day may come when you will be 
 mine ! 
 
 " God bless you, Carlo ! Now let me go ; I 
 must go." 
 
 " You shall go, darling. One more last kiss ; 
 one more to remember and to think of when 
 we are far apart." 
 
 He still held her to his heart, and the minutes 
 sped — sped on their fateful way. 
 
 If that last, last kiss had not been given ; if — 
 if— always that terrible "if" — if something, 
 some little little thing had been a hair's breadth 
 different from what it was I 
 
 At last Griulia escaped from his arms, and 
 sped back through the narrow lane as quickly 
 as her light feet would carry her ; turned once 
 at the corner of the Palazzo to look back for an 
 instant, and then, with that death in her heart 
 which comes from entire despair and the utter 
 blankness of the future, hastened to rejoin her 
 sister in the church. 
 
 The cathedral clock had struck five a few 
 minutes before she reached the western front of 
 the building and she was within a couple of 
 paces of the sacred threshold, when suddenly, 
 without a note of warning, the solid earth began 
 to rock and reel beneath her feet. Her head
 
 st. peter's day at bellvno. 149 
 
 swam, her feet staggered ; she instinctively 
 stretched out her arms to save herself from 
 falling. 
 
 What was it ? Was she stricken with illness ? 
 Was she losing her senses ? Had the death, 
 which she had wished for and almost invoked 
 a minute or too previously, already overtaken 
 her ? Everything seemed swaying giddily 
 around her ; a great wind seemed to have arisen 
 with unnatural suddenness ; and all the air was 
 filled with dust and haze. The beautiful clear- 
 ness of the summer morning was gone ; and it 
 seemed to Giulia as if all nature were stricken 
 with the crushing sorrow which had killed her 
 own heart. 
 
 The great western door of the cathedral 
 yawned open in front of her. Eefuge and 
 safety were intimately connected in her mind 
 with the idea of the sacred edifice. Besides, 
 Assunta was within. 
 
 With outstretched arms, as seeking to balance 
 herself amid the strange commotion, stumbling 
 and staggering, she rushed forward towards the 
 open door. • 
 
 If she had torn herself from her lover's arms 
 a minute sooner ; if she had been detained by 
 him a minute — half a quarter of a minute —
 
 150 QIULIA VARAN I; OB, 
 
 longer ; if her impulse had been to turn and fly, 
 instead of to go forward into the church — if, if, 
 if — the mind will recur, in the imbecility of its 
 blindness, to such vain thinkings of what might 
 have been. What was, was that at the moment, 
 the very moment, that Giulia crossed the thres- 
 hold of the building, the earthquake shook a 
 huge fragment of carved stone from the spot 
 where it had securely rested for so many genera- 
 tions in the topmost pinnacle of the gable-wall 
 above her ; and that which a moment before was 
 a living brain, thinking and embracing both the 
 past and the future in its life, and a living heart, 
 loving, throbbing, despairing, suffering, lay on 
 the pavement a horrible crushed mass of quiver- 
 ing flesh and shattered bones ! 
 
 Ay, had she gone into the church with her 
 sister, or had she remained but one moment 
 longer with her lover ! For hers was the only 
 life lost in the ruin that that first and most 
 terrible shock of the terrible earthquake which 
 devastated Belluno and its neighbourhood in the 
 year 1873 brought upon the cathedral. Fortu- 
 nately the congregation, as has been said, had 
 assembled to hear mass at one of the lateral 
 altars of the side aisle. Had they been in front 
 of the high altar, the destruction of life must
 
 st. peter's day at belluno. 151 
 
 have been terrible. For the apse of the church 
 was rent in two places, and huge masses of the 
 roof were hurled on to the altar and on to the 
 pavement in front of it, and forced their way 
 through it into the vaults below. As it was, no 
 life was lost in the church save that of our poor 
 Giulia, who indeed could hardly have been said 
 to have been in the church, having met her fate 
 on the very threshold.
 
 THE ATKINSES AT ROME.
 
 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A " MEET " IN THE CAMPAGNA. 
 
 The aptitude and the inaptitude of Englishmen 
 to make homes for themselves in strange lands, 
 and to become, as Byron says, " In strange eyes 
 not a stranger," are both remarkable as you 
 regard the matter from different points of view. 
 That the Englishman is a good colonist the 
 history of the# world declares with sufficient 
 emphasis and distinctness. That he not only 
 can find a home in strange lands, but can find 
 a pleasure in doing so, the cities of Europe, 
 from St. Petersburg to Palermo, abundantly 
 declare. Yet your Englishman does not readily 
 emancipate himself from the specialties of his 
 English habits. He assimilates himself to the
 
 156 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 people among whom he pitches his nomad tent 
 less perhaps than the denizen of any other land. 
 Perfectly ready to leave his island home, and 
 to leave it as far behind him as may be needed, 
 he yet insists upon carrying England about 
 with him wherever he goes. And the degree 
 in which he has succeeded in causing his special 
 needs and tastes to be supplied and catered for 
 on the shores of the Mediterranean, as well as 
 on those of the Baltic, is one of the curious 
 specialties of modern life in Europe. Lord 
 Byron's Fletcher would no longer need to make 
 his master's life a burden to him because there 
 was no porter to be had. And Miss Mariana 
 Starke's * recommendations to the traveller 
 about to venture across the Channel, to carry 
 with him " a carving-knife and fork, and a 
 block- tin tea-kettle," are out of date; not because 
 he has learned to live without his block-tin 
 tea-kettle, but because he has taught the nations 
 of Europe to provide the article for him. And 
 
 * Perhaps I ought not to assume that readers of the 
 present day have ever heard of Miss Mariana Starke. 
 Her book was the guide-book to the Continent in the days 
 before Murray's red books existed ; and her volume is a 
 truly curious indication of the changes that have been 
 made in continental life in the course of the last half- 
 eentury.
 
 A "meet" in tee campagna. 157 
 
 to this teaching our Trans- Atlantic cousins have 
 of late years contributed their full share. It 
 is not, I think, that Americans have the same 
 degree of difficulty in adapting themselves to 
 the habits and ways of living of foreign society. 
 They are perhaps more cosmopolitan in this 
 respect than their fathers in the old country. 
 But they invariably find English ways and 
 things so much more consonant to their own 
 likings than those of any other people, that they 
 swell — and in these latter years have more than 
 doubled — the demand for all that was originally 
 provided especially for Englishmen. And as, of 
 course, all such special providings must depend 
 on the extent of the demand, the greatly in- 
 creased flood of American travellers in Europe 
 has largely contributed to the due supply of all 
 those special little matters that an Englishman 
 likes to find prepared for him. 
 
 Foremost among the specialties which illus- 
 trate the truth of these remarks is the Roman 
 hunt. A fox-hunt bodily transplanted out of 
 the English shires to the Campagna around 
 Rome ! A " view halloo " within hearing of 
 the Catacombs ! The mere idea is enough to 
 make each separate saint of all the tens of 
 thousands who lie there, and have lain in peace
 
 ]f)8 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 for some sixteen hundred years, turn in his 
 narrow rock-hewn bed. Of all the transplanta- 
 tions of bits of English life to foreign soil, this 
 establishment of a fox-hunt at Rome is the most 
 wonderful and the most audacious. Think of 
 listening to the music of the hounds under 
 the shadow of the tower-tomb of Csecilia Metella! 
 Think of Reynard " stealing away " between 
 the sepulchres which line the Yia Appia ! Yet 
 it has taken root in the soil to which it has 
 been transplanted, and has become an institu- 
 tion. Many of the Roman jeunesse doree have 
 taken to the sport kindly, and would find a 
 great gap in their winter amusements if the 
 English hunt were no longer in existence. But 
 it would assuredly cease to exist if it were 
 wholly cut off from the parent stock. A con- 
 tinuous supply of English riders, English 
 horses, English dogs, and, above all, English 
 ways and ideas, is needed to cause the exotic 
 plant to flourish. Possibly American patronage 
 might keep up the hunt even if Old England 
 had sunk beneath the sea — for it is at the 
 present day as much supported by Americans 
 as by Englishmen — but it may be safely affirmed 
 that if the Italians were left to manage it by 
 themselves, the institution would not last long.
 
 IN THE CAMP AON A. 159 
 
 They are not " to the manner born," though, 
 as I have said, some among them take to it 
 kindly. The Prince Royal is a great supporter 
 of the hunt, and is very constantly present at 
 the meets. And he does not ride badly. Prince 
 Sciarra is also a very regular attendant, and 
 does the thing, as far as it is possible for one 
 of Latin race to do it, in good English style. 
 
 But let us suppose, not that Chanticleer has 
 " proclaimed a hunting-morning," in the words 
 of the good old English hunting-song — because 
 the Nimrods of the Eternal City do not dream 
 of turning out till near mid-day — but that the 
 Italian News has proclaimed it in its columns, 
 and betake ourselves to mark " the humours " 
 of a meet in the Campagna. 
 
 The meet on this occasion shall be at the 
 tomb of Csecilia Metella — perhaps the prettiest, 
 most characteristic, and most picturesque of all 
 the spots at which the Roman hunt is in the 
 habit of assembling. This celebrated tomb is 
 situated by the side of the Yia Appia, about 
 two miles from the gate of St. Sebastian, on 
 the southern side of the city. The Yia Appia — 
 " longarum regina viarum," as an old Roman 
 poet calls it — was the great means of com- 
 munication between Rome and all the south
 
 160 TEE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 of Italy and the port of Brundusium, the 
 modern Brindisi. The Yia Appia was there- 
 fore also the highway leading to all the Eoman 
 settlements and colonies in the Levant, as well 
 as to Egypt and to Greece. For the first ten 
 or twelve miles of its course after leaving the 
 city the road is lined by an almost continuous 
 succession of ancient sepulchres, and immedi- 
 ately after passing the Catacombs of St. Sebas- 
 tian it plunges into the full desolation of the 
 Campagna. The peculiar and unspeakable sad- 
 ness which is the special characteristic of the 
 Eoman Campagna — and also, it may be said, 
 its special charm — has often been remarked. 
 And that portion of the vast and wonderful 
 prairie which the traveller enters on who leaves 
 Rome by the Yia Appia bears impressed on 
 it this special characteristic perhaps more 
 strikingly than any other. Certainly, whether 
 considered with reference to the immediate 
 foreground or to the features of the distant 
 view, it is the most beautiful. In front, as he 
 faces south, the wayfarer on the Yia Appia 
 has the Alban Hills, culminating in Monte Cavo, 
 and shutting in the plain of the Campagna 
 before his eyes. They are studded with towns 
 and villages, which show like white spots of
 
 A "MEET IN TEE C AMP AG N A. 161 
 
 light amid the darker colouring of the sur- 
 rounding woods, or retire into shadow scarcely 
 to be distinguished from them, according as the 
 southern sun touches them with his gilding, or 
 a fleeting cloud shelters them from his eye. 
 But these distant evidences of the presence of 
 human life are too far off to mar the absolute 
 and impressive solitude of the scene. Imme- 
 diately around are the silent but eloquent 
 memorials of the past — such dim and ever 
 dimmer abysses of the past ! — vistas of dark 
 centuries, barely rendered visible by a twink- 
 ling light of history or tradition, seen at the 
 farther end of other even darker vistas of 
 barbarous mediaeval generations ! They are all 
 represented. They have all left their mark on 
 that triply palimpsest surface. Even as the 
 geologist shows us the strata of the globe's 
 crust, one beneath the other, differentiated by 
 the characterizing fossils each contains, and 
 formed at epochs far distant from each other, 
 so on this wondrous Eoman plain may be traced 
 the different couches of the works of bygone 
 generations, superimposed one upon the other, 
 and obliterating one the other. Tombs, from 
 the princely structure which has given its name 
 to the locality in question, to the humble road- 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 TEE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 side slab bearing a half-obliterated name ; 
 temples, from the pagan fanes of deities whose 
 names are forgotten on the lips of the people, 
 though the raison d'etre of them still lives in 
 their hearts and fashions their lives, to the 
 wretched lath-and-plaster saints' niches of the 
 present day ; fortresses ; tottering walls and 
 vaults of imperial pleasure-houses ; huge earth- 
 works, the purpose and meaning of which not 
 even the archaeologist can guess ; foundations, 
 shattered arches, aqueducts, — these are the 
 characters in which History writes her moulder- 
 ing records around. And the present utters 
 no sound to distract from them the attention 
 of the reader. Utter, utter solitude is the 
 characteristic, and seems to be the appropriate 
 characteristic, of the region. Possibly between 
 your eye and the horizon the solitary figure 
 of a horseman may be seen crossing the wide 
 surface of the plain, or perhaps passing beneath 
 one of the arches which are as the giant strides 
 of the aqueduct, as it stalks across the far- 
 stretching extent of brown grass-fields. He is 
 doubtless a "massaro," as the men are called 
 to whose care the vast herds that roam over the 
 Campagna are entrusted ; and he looks, with 
 his gun slung behind his back, his long goad —
 
 A "meet" in tee campaona. 163 
 
 which may do duty in the picture of him for 
 a lance — his steeple-crowned brigand hat, and 
 his easy and free seat upon his horse, as 
 picturesque a figure and one as appropriate to 
 the scene as an Arab on the desert. And his 
 silent passage across the field of your vision 
 has in nowise the effect of diminishing the 
 solitariness of the scene. 
 
 These are the surroundings among which we 
 take our way to the " meet " on a lovely bright, 
 sunshiny day in January. Solitary ! Why the 
 old Appian Way is as much alive as an English 
 turnpike road in the neighbourhood of a county 
 town on market-day. Truly the ghosts who 
 may be supposed to haunt this tomb-bordered 
 way must conclude that some very strange new 
 phase of the world's history has set in ; they 
 had been allowed for so many centuries to sleep 
 their quiet sleep and dream their undisturbed 
 dreams in peace ; their rest, and the melancholy, 
 time-consecrated repose of all that remained 
 of what had been theirs, had been so long 
 respected ! 
 
 Not long after passing under the old archway 
 of the Porta di San Sebastiano we come in sight 
 of the huge circular mass of the building known 
 as the tomb of Csecilia Metella, Our vehicle —
 
 164 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 for we are among the lookers-on, and not among 
 the actors in the anticipated sport — is one in a 
 long line of carriages which follow each other 
 along the road. Eoman coachmen never attempt 
 to pass each other. The dust on the " regina 
 viarum " is ankle-deep, and of a rich chocolate 
 colour, composed mainly of the debris of " poz- 
 zolana," as the deep ruddy-brown earth is called 
 which has made for two thousand years, and 
 still continues to make, the excellent Eoman 
 mortar. It matters little which way the wind is. 
 If from the north, you are covered by the clouds 
 kicked up by the carriages behind you ; if from 
 the south, you are the victim of those which 
 precede you. The associations which you have 
 hitherto cherished in connection with that 
 storied track are exposed to shocks yet more 
 severe than the inequalities of the road — which 
 in truth has seen better days — inflict upon your 
 person. 
 
 " Consumedly dusty, this Yiar Rappier ! It's 
 worse by chalks than the Epsom road on a 
 Derby Day! Why don't they put down some 
 macadam?" sings out, as he trots by, young 
 Courtney Smith, a Cockney of the Cockneys, 
 whose father made his money in Capel Court, a 
 jovial, florid young fellow, who could be mis-
 
 A "meet" in tee campagna. 165 
 
 taken for nothing but an Englishman if you 
 were to put a burnous on him and set him 
 down to share an Arab's mess of mare's milk 
 under a tent in the desert. Reginald Courtney 
 Smith is always at the meet, is a great supporter 
 of the hunt, and is got up in irreproachable 
 style. Not in pink. No ! The English and 
 American members of the hunt, for the most 
 part, do not sport red coats ; the latent meaning 
 of which I suppose to be a silent protest to the 
 effect that they are well aware that this is not 
 the real thing — only a make-shift to fill the 
 void in the heart of the wanderer, which yearns 
 for the better joys of " the shires." Be the 
 motive what it may, American and English 
 Romans do not hunt in pink. They leave such 
 gaudy delight to the young Romans to whom 
 " looking like the time " is half the battle. 
 
 " But think what dust it is ! " says the Rev. 
 Athanasius Abbott, a High Church English 
 divine, in a coat made to be a clever imitation of 
 a cassock, and who, if he remains much longer 
 in Rome, will probably become a " pervert " — 
 " the dust of vanished empires, the dust of saints 
 and martyrs, Mr. Smith ! Macadam on the Yia 
 Appia, forsooth ! The next thing would be to 
 fit up St. Peter's with pews ! "
 
 166 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 Athanasius Abbott, who, his theology aside, 
 is a very pleasant fellow and a gentleman, and 
 whose religious views by no means prevent his 
 coming out to see the "meet," especially in such 
 company as he has with him in the carriage 
 which is next before our own, is a special 
 favourite with the young ladies of the American 
 and English colony ; and papas of sound Protes- 
 tant views sufficiently pronounced to make them 
 care about the isms of their daughters would do 
 well to keep their eyes open. The comely lady 
 sitting opposite to him in the carriage is Mrs. 
 Armytage Atkins, a widow from Baltimore, who 
 has been a beauty ; and the two young ladies, 
 her daughters, who occupy the remaining seats, 
 are such now, and very charming girls into the 
 bargain. They perfectly well understand that 
 Mr. Abbott is a gentleman and Mr. Smith a 
 snob. But the latter is good-humoured, gay, 
 mounted on a very handsome horse, and is an 
 ever-ready partner in the ball-room. So pretty 
 Marian Atkins, who tolerates him rather more 
 kindly than her sister — for Nora rather gives 
 him the cold shoulder in consequence of the 
 annoyance it occasions her to hear him call her 
 Norar Ratkins — Marian replies : " For my part 
 I agree with Mr. Smith. I think that since the
 
 A "meet" in the campagna. 167 
 
 empires have vanished, it would be a great deal 
 better that their dust should vanish too. Which 
 way do you think the fox will take this 
 morning, Mr. Smith ? " 
 
 Little Reginald Courtney Smith is delighted, 
 and reins up his thoroughbred to ride by the 
 side of the carriage. The imprudent Marian 
 had little intended that her small bit of patron- 
 age should have the effect of attaching Mr. 
 Smith to the side of the carriage all the rest of 
 the way to the place of meeting. Nora gives 
 her sister a look, and feelings not strictly such 
 as should prevail on the inside of a cassock are 
 generated in the heart of the Rev. Athanasius. 
 
 Just then a young American Oxonian, who 
 has joined his family in Italy during the Christ- 
 mas vacation, and who has the reputation of 
 being the boldest rider in Rome, trots by on the 
 other side of the Atkinses' carriage to that on 
 which Mr. Smith is riding. Summers Deverell 
 hails from Philadelphia, though one would say 
 that Quaker blood was the last thing one would 
 expect to find in his composition. He sees at 
 a glance the state of the case as regards the 
 attendant cavalier on the other side of the car- 
 riage, and, after raising his hat to Mrs. Atkins, 
 with a " Lovely morning for a run, isn't it,
 
 168 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 ma'am ? " he shoots back a wicked " Wish yon 
 joy, Miss Marian ! " which that young lady 
 perfectly understands, though neither of the 
 gentlemen does. 
 
 At that moment the line of carriages draws 
 a little to one side, and His Royal Highness 
 Prince Humbert dashes by in his dog-cart — an 
 exception to what has been said about Roman 
 coachmen not passing each other on the road. 
 The whole turn-out of His Royal Highness is 
 thoroughly unexceptionable, and perfectly Eng- 
 lish in style. The dog-cart, the splendid fast- 
 trotting horse, the two grooms on the seat 
 behind, might all have been imported from the 
 little island in one piece. The " get up " of 
 His Royal Highness himself is also thoroughly 
 English, and, curiously enough, both he and his 
 "turn-out" have a much more genuinely English 
 appearance than the most Anglomane supporter 
 of " le sport " at Chantilly was ever able to 
 assume. His Royal Highness rides in pink, 
 but he at present wears a buff overcoat, which 
 will be pulled off when he mounts at the "meet." 
 It is abundantly evident that Prince Humbert 
 has fashioned himself, as far as the hunting- 
 field is concerned, on English models. But I 
 would not say of him, as used to be said with
 
 A "meet" in the campagna. 169 
 
 perfect truth of that poor young Duke of Parma 
 who was assassinated in the streets of his own 
 capital some twenty years or so ago, that when 
 he used to come to the Florence races the most 
 acceptable compliment you could pay him was 
 to go up to him, and, pretending to take him for 
 an English groom, ask where his master was. 
 Prince Humbert rides well, and is very constant 
 at the meets of the hunt when he is in Pome. 
 Mr. Courtney Smith rises in his stirrups as the 
 Prince passes, and takes off his hat and bows 
 ostentatiously. The Pev. Athanasius Abbott sits 
 as motionless as a statue. He is prepared at 
 any moment for social martyrdom in support 
 of his opinion that Victor Emmanuel is a 
 usurper who has no business to be at Pome. 
 
 Presently an elderly American gentleman 
 rides past, raising his hat to the occupants of 
 the carriage as he passes, but without speaking. 
 He is well mounted, and his appointments are 
 all " in good form," as the modern slang phrase 
 has it, but very quiet. He is very evidently 
 a gentleman, and one who, as might be easily 
 guessed, does not like to be " loud " in his 
 amusements in any way. By his side rides, on 
 a queer-looking, very tall, and very raw-boned 
 steed, a young Poman in the most brilliant of
 
 170 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 scarlet coats, the most showy of green satin 
 cravats, an enormous hunting-whip, which he 
 holds as a coachman driving four-in-hand might 
 hold his whip, and a pair of blue cloth trousers, 
 which have wriggled up on his legs so as to 
 display an undue portion of the boots below 
 them. 
 
 " What is the matter with Mr. Eobbins ? 
 He seems quite cross this morning, passing 
 without a word in that manner," says Nora 
 Atkins. 
 
 " Don't you see what is the matter ? " returns 
 her mother. " Can't you make allowance for 
 the effect of acute suffering ? " 
 
 " I should not wonder if it were to end in a 
 tragedy — upon my soul, I shouldn't. I expect 
 that Eobbins will brain that fellow some day, 
 I do indeed," says Mr. Smith. 
 
 " Why ? what has ' the fellow ' done ? and 
 who is he ? " inquires the Rev. Athanasius 
 innocently. 
 
 " What ! don't you know ? All Rome has 
 been talking about it. As for who he is, that's 
 more than I can tell you ; but I know that he is 
 the best fun going," replies Mr. Smith. 
 
 " What is he talking about ? " says the Rev. 
 Athanasius in a lower tone to Miss Nora Atkins,
 
 A "meet" in the campagna. 171 
 
 who is sitting opposite to him on the side of the 
 carriage farthest from Mr. Smith. " Do you 
 understand what it is all about, Miss Nora ? " 
 repeats the clergyman, not above half liking the 
 tone of the gay and gallant Smith, but, on the 
 other hand, unwilling to be ignorant of any- 
 thing that " all Rome " is talking about. 
 
 " Yes, I know what he is alluding to — a 
 parcel of stupid nonsense," says Miss Nora, with 
 a curl of her pretty lip. " That thing riding 
 there in the red coat would stick himself close 
 to Mr. Robbins, it seems, all the time they were 
 out last " meet," and the old gentleman was very 
 much disgusted with it." 
 
 " Well, I can't say he looks like a very 
 attractive companion," says the clergyman ; 
 "but have you no idea who or what he is, Mr. 
 Smith ? " 
 
 " Who or what ? Well, as for what he is, he 
 is some Italian snob, with less than the ninth 
 part of a tailor's idea of riding. I take it he 
 sticks to old Robbins because he considers him 
 a safe leader. At the end of the day last time, 
 after having been with considerable difficulty 
 persuaded to put up a revolver which he had 
 brought with him for the purpose of • shoot- 
 ing the fox, he was seen pressing with eager
 
 172 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 hospitality on poor Bobbins some sausage and 
 6 ricotta,' which he drew forth from his coat 
 pocket after he had been riding on it all day. 
 You may conceive the disgust of poor Eobbins 
 and the inextinguishable laughter of the whole 
 field. Another man would have shared the fun, 
 but Bobbins could not brook being made one of 
 the actors in such a scene. And now there he 
 is again, and Bobbins can no more shake him 
 off than if he were chained to his horse's tail, 
 knowing all the while what a burst of laughter 
 there will be when he rides on the field attended 
 by his satellite ! Bobbins can't bear to be 
 laughed at." 
 
 " Well, I do think that it ought to be brought 
 in ' justifiable homicide' if Mr. Bobbins does 
 ' brain ' him, as Mr. Smith suggests," says Miss 
 Nora in an undertone. 
 
 " But Mr. Smith does not sufficiently reflect 
 on the consequences that might arise if such a 
 mode of ridding one's self of disagreeable and 
 adhesive people were recognized," rejoins the 
 Bev. Athanasius in the same tone. " I confess, 
 all the same, that I rather sympathize with the 
 feelings of Mr. Bobbins." 
 
 Shortly after that the carriages pass under 
 the shadow of the huge round tower and the
 
 A "MEET IN THE CAMPAGNA. 173 
 
 remains of mediaeval walls — mushroom upstarts 
 in comparison to its own venerable antiquity — 
 which have remained attached to it ever since 
 Pope Boniface VIII. in the thirteenth century 
 turned it into one of the fortress-strongholds of 
 the Graetani, to which family he belonged. This 
 grand old tower was built nearly two thousand 
 years ago as a monument to the memory of 
 Caecilia Metella, the wife of Crassus and the 
 daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus. The 
 reader will no doubt remember Byron's lines on 
 this tomb in the fourth canto of Ckilde Harold. 
 The High Church clergyman quotes them for 
 the benefit of Nora Atkins as the carriage 
 passes beneath the tower and turns into the 
 field beyond it, through a gate in the half- 
 ruinous wall that thereabouts bounds the road, 
 the narrow passage of which makes it necessary 
 for Mr. Smith to resign his place by the side of 
 the carriage. In another minute he is in the 
 midst of the horsemen who have gathered 
 around the hounds, which have just arrived on 
 the ground under the care of the whipper-in ; 
 and the carriage is being manoeuvred, not with- 
 out some difficulty, over the soft and uneven 
 turf, among the crowd of vehicles that throng 
 the field and are crossing and recrossing each
 
 174 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 other in all directions in search of the best spot 
 of vantage for seeing the " throwing off." 
 
 We turn in at the gate immediately behind 
 the Atkinses party, but in the next minute are 
 separated from them in the throng. The scene 
 around us is truly an extraordinary one. The 
 part of the Campagna overlooked from the field 
 in question, which occupies the highest part 
 of one of the rising knolls so frequent in the 
 district, is one of the most picturesque that can 
 be found within its limits. I have endeavoured 
 partially to describe the distant outlook on 
 which the eye rests at the extremity of the 
 Campagna. But the objects more immediately 
 around are striking and suggestive in the 
 highest degree. The ruins of the mediaeval 
 fortress of the G-aetani, showing like a worn-out 
 rake knocked to pieces by riotous living in 
 comparative youth by the side of the stalwart 
 hale old age of the tower, their senior by 
 thirteen centuries, and bidding fair to outlive 
 them by thirteen more, are in the highest 
 degree picturesque. The grand line of arches 
 on the left, striding across the plain in solemn 
 and solitary grandeur, marks the course of the 
 Aqua Claudia. The lofty mediaeval tower called 
 the Torre Fiscale, on the same side of the road,
 
 A "meet" in the campagna. 175 
 
 tells the tale of days more utterly vanished than 
 those of the more storied pagan times. Lastly 
 — but by no means least in the value of its con- 
 tribution to the beauty of the scene — there is at 
 some little distance to the southward a large 
 clump of pines, the deep verdure of which 
 contrasts admirably with the brown tones of the 
 remainder of the landscape. And over all there 
 is that ineffably beautifying light of the Roman 
 sky, which seems by some inexplicable peculiarity 
 of atmosphere to have the specialty of freedom 
 from all garish quality, and the gift of impart- 
 ing — even while it gilds the world of ruins 
 it falls on — a pensiveness to the impressions 
 inspired by gazing on them. 
 
 Walter Scott bids those who would view fair 
 Melrose aright to visit it by the pale moonlight. 
 Those who appreciate the goodness of the advice 
 would hardly perhaps think the time for visiting 
 " aright " the matchless scene I have attempted 
 to describe, is when all the place is brilliant 
 with the scarlet coats of sportmen and the gay 
 dresses of the ladies in a hundred carriages, and 
 the air is filled with jocund, ringing voices, 
 among which the familiar tone of our own 
 tongue largely predominates. Yet a " meet " at 
 the tomb of Cascilia Metella is worth seeing, if
 
 176 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 only because most assuredly such a conjunction 
 of sights, sounds, ideas, and associations can be 
 met with nowhere else. 
 
 It is getting on toward mid-day, and the 
 enthusiastic sportsmen do not seem to be in 
 any great hurry for the " throw off." It may 
 be suspected perhaps that, to many of them, 
 the pleasantest part of the day's work consists 
 in showing off themselves and their horses 
 among the carriages, with the occupants of 
 which a deal of flirting is done before the real 
 business of the day commences. "Do your 
 devoirs, gentle knights ! Bright eyes behold 
 your deeds ! " used to be the encouragement 
 proclaimed aloud by the heralds in the olden 
 days of joust and tournament. And on the 
 present occasion the impatient crack from 
 time to time of the huntsman's whip might 
 be understood to be eloquent in the same sense. 
 But the bright eyes seem to be more potent to 
 detain the cavaliers where they are than to 
 stimulate to any deeds save riding about saun- 
 teringly from one carriage door to another. It 
 seems difficult to guess what they are waiting 
 for. One odd specialty of the Eoman hunt 
 seems to be that the hounds are in no greater 
 hurry than their human playfellows. They
 
 A "meet" in the campagna. 177 
 
 stand or sit in a group in the centre of the 
 field in a state of apparently perfect content- 
 ment ; and their placidity is accounted for when 
 we observe that they are, though pretty dogs, 
 a great deal fatter than would be deemed 
 tolerable in the little island. 
 
 Meanwhile, the field has become very full. 
 The latest laggards have arrived from the city, 
 and some four or five ladies are seen amono- 
 those mounted for the sport. At last, when 
 the sun has long passed the meridian, they 
 move off saunteringly and easily enough to the 
 south-westward, and we follow them with our 
 eyes till the last of the trail is lost behind one 
 of the innumerable inequalities in the surface of 
 the Campagna, and they disappear in the folds 
 of a valley where there is a little cover, and 
 where, as we hear afterward, they find a fox, 
 which does not take them so far afield as to 
 prevent the entire party being back in Eome in 
 time to dress for a seven-o'clock dinner. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 • CHAPTEE II. 
 
 MRS. ATKINS' " DAY.' 
 
 The most remarkable change in the social 
 aspects of the Eternal City which has resulted 
 from the new order of things in the political 
 world is the separation of its society into two 
 portions. It is not the only change which 
 most strikes those who knew Rome under its 
 old regime, but it is to those who are making 
 their first acquaintance with continental society 
 the most peculiar and novel feature in it. Cer- 
 tainly the state of things which now prevails 
 in this respect in Rome cannot be supposed 
 to be as strange to Italians as it would be to 
 Americans or English. For the time has been 
 when every city in the Peninsula was divided 
 between two parties, whose feelings towards 
 each other it would be a libel on the animal 
 creation to liken to those of cats and dogs.
 
 MBS. ATKINS "DAY." 179 
 
 The genius of one whose every word has the 
 privilege of conferring deathless fame has made 
 the quarrels and the hatreds of the Montagues 
 and Capulets proverbial throughout the world. 
 But every city in Italy was divided and torn by 
 party spirit as fierce and unforgiving as that 
 which divided Yerona, and Kome had its Orsini 
 and Colonnas, not to speak of the innumerable 
 partisanships and jealousies which arose from 
 the intrigues bred in the bosom of the Sacred 
 College. More recently, however, the society 
 at Rome was marked rather by a special unity. 
 The men who were sighing and secretly plotting 
 for the new order of things, which has come 
 at last, were not " in society " at Eome at all. 
 Society consisted exclusively of princes, car- 
 dinals and their hangers-on, and foreigners ; 
 and, save in the meetings where the foreign 
 visitors made their own society for themselves, 
 dreadfully dull that very select and dignified 
 society used to be — dull beyond the power of 
 Transalpine minds to conceive. 
 
 It was at the princely houses, for the most 
 part, that these indescribably sad and festive 
 throngs used to assemble. I am speaking, it 
 must be remembered, of the old days when 
 Gregory XYI. was Pope, when all social
 
 180 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 matters were very different at Eome from what 
 they have been since or ever will be again — 
 when, for example, the number of visitors from 
 the United States was very small in comparison 
 with what it is now. The English were also 
 fewer; and I think I may pay both those 
 nations the compliment of saying that if their 
 members had thronged those vast and dreary 
 drawing-rooms in such numbers as they are 
 now seen in at Eome, it would have been im- 
 possible that the gatherings should have been 
 so deadly dull. However, there was at least 
 the advantage that everybody knew everybody ; 
 and though everybody had very little to say to 
 anybody, bows and greetings were at least good- 
 humoured, and there were no sour looks — no 
 looking of daggers, though more might occa- 
 sionally have been used in the streets than was 
 usual in other civilized communities. There 
 were sure to be from half a dozen to half a 
 score or so of cardinals, magnificent in their 
 scarlet stockings, and coats bound with scarlet 
 edging. They generally used to gather to- 
 gether, and very frequently on a cold evening 
 on the hearthrug, looking like a covey of some 
 sort of huge red-legged fowls. The present 
 writer, then a youngster, well remembers how,
 
 MBS. ATKINS* "DAY. 181 
 
 his curiosity having been excited by such a 
 group, he gradually edged himself into the 
 immediate neighbourhood of these specimens 
 of a class of humanity then quite new to him, 
 speculating much on the nature of the words 
 of wisdom which must have been passing from 
 such lips to such ears. Presently he was able 
 to catch the following utterances enunciated 
 with much deliberation, and in those pure and 
 well-articulated accents which have made the 
 " lingua Toscana in bocca Romana " famous : 
 " E molto male, sai, di mangiare troppo la sera." 
 (" It is very bad, you know, to eat too much of 
 an evening.") The speaker was a tall, meagre 
 old man, with a retreating forehead and parrot- 
 like beak, whose long nether limbs exhibited 
 a magnificent expanse of scarlet stocking. 
 Then there followed a chorus of " Grias " and 
 nods and grunts, which seemed to indicate that 
 sundry of his hearers could testify to the truth 
 of that profound dictum from the depths of their 
 own sad experiences. 
 
 The drawing-room in which this occurred 
 was that of one of the princely houses, and its 
 mistress was one of the leaders of Roman 
 fashion. It was a very long room, and all 
 the ladies sat in rows against the walls.
 
 182 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 Every now and then one of the "porporati" 
 — as their eminences the members of the 
 Sacred College are called, from the prevailing 
 colour of their dress — would march up to one 
 of this long file of noble dames and address a 
 few words to her. Whenever this happened, 
 not only the lady addressed, but all those in 
 her immediate neighbourhood, rose and re- 
 mained standing as long as that gracious 
 presence shone on her, whilst any layman 
 who might have been speaking to her fell 
 back. 
 
 These princely entertainments (?) of the 
 good old times were conducted, au reste, in a 
 very simple and unostentatious fashion. Of 
 the vulgarities of wealth it must be owned 
 one saw less in days when no class had any 
 cause to fear the possibility of the class beneath 
 it treading on its kibes, than may be witnessed 
 in more progressive times. The only mani- 
 festations of wealth consisted in the grandeur 
 of the locale, the superb show of diamonds on 
 the heads and necks of the ladies, and the 
 great number and gorgeous liveries of the 
 servants. The rooms were not very profusely 
 lighted, and the refreshments offered to the 
 guests were of the simplest kind — a glass of
 
 MBS. ATKIXS' "DAY" 183 
 
 lemonade, with possibly a biscuit, or the like. 
 Nor was there ever the smallest attempt at 
 amusement of any kind beyond the sparing 
 exchange of a few words of the very flattest 
 and most banale description conceivable. Most 
 of the ladies present, the old not at all less 
 than the young — all of them, probably, save a 
 few who were understood to be going in for 
 a quite special and almost conventual degree 
 of sanctity and perfection of life — had " cava- 
 lieri serventi," who were invited quite as a 
 matter of course, wherever the ladies they 
 served were invited. But no mistake would 
 be greater than to suppose that this circum- 
 stance derogated in any degree from the severe 
 and almost austere proprieties of the assembly. 
 The conduct of the " serving gentlemen " to 
 their respective ladies would be that of a some- 
 what specially attentive husband who has been 
 married a dozen years. As for any " scandal " 
 or remark of any kind, the only possibility 
 would have been that if any one of the cavalieri 
 thus bound to service had been observed on any 
 number of occasions to neglect his due "service," 
 some grave word of disapprobation might have 
 been whispered by the Princess of This into the 
 ear of the Duchess That, in much the^same tone
 
 184 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 as the neglect of a husband might be censured 
 in communities on the other side of the Alps. 
 
 Since the new order of things has fallen upon 
 these scarlet priests and priest-descended princes 
 and noble dames with the crushing sense of a. 
 world falling into ruin around them, there has 
 been an end to such gatherings as have been 
 described, and the state-rooms in the magnifi- 
 cent palaces have been shut up, or open only to 
 very much smaller and yet more select coteries 
 of near friends meeting to groan together over 
 the appalling cataclysm that has happened. 
 Larger assemblies, however select and confined 
 to approved members of their own party, would 
 have the appearance of festivity and pleasure, 
 which is held to be quite out of keeping with 
 the present mournful condition of circumstances. 
 "When the Holy Father is in sorrow and in 
 eclipse, how should his children join in revelry ? 
 Mournfulness and abstention from anything like 
 gaiety or amusement is therefore the mark of 
 the highest " ton " and nicest attention to the 
 " convenances " among the faithful adherents of 
 the old order of things. It is considered de mise 
 too, among the members of the great papalini 
 houses, to affect an increased degree of sim- 
 plicity, and even of poverty, as marking the
 
 MSB. ATKINS' "DAY." 185 
 
 period of eclipse through which they are pass- 
 ing. We hear of a duchess being received by 
 a princess with a " Cara Maria, how well that 
 silk of yours looks since it was turned ! " It is 
 understood to be made manifest by such means 
 as these how utterly and fatally prosperity, 
 happiness, good order, and the very framework 
 of society itself, have been smashed and over- 
 turned by Victor Emmanuel and his godless 
 usurpation. 
 
 The effect produced by this condition of social 
 aspects, as regards the foreign residents and 
 visitors, is peculiar, and often to the observant 
 bystander amusing enough. It is hardly in the 
 nature of English or Americans to remain long- 
 in the vicinity of a contest without taking part 
 in it on one side or the other ; and of course in- 
 dividual opinions and temperaments predispose 
 different people to opposite sides in a quarrel 
 which involves all the most important issues, 
 both in the sphere of politics and in that of 
 religion, which can present themselves to a 
 man's mind. But as a general rule it might 
 be expected that the great majority of both 
 Americans and English would find themselves 
 more in sympathy with the new than with 
 the old order of things in Eome. The great
 
 186 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 bulk of our people are Protestant ; they are 
 citizens of free communities ; they cannot but 
 think that the great change which Italy has 
 succeeded in bringing about in her destinies 
 and fortunes is for her own happiness and to the 
 advantage of the world in general. And doubt- 
 less the majority, the large majority, of both 
 Americans and English are anti-papal and well- 
 wishers to the new order of things in Italy. But 
 such is not universally the case. The causes 
 which operate to produce a select body of Papal 
 sympathizers among the American and English 
 visitors at Eome are twofold. In the first place, 
 there are some Catholics, either such from their 
 birth, or " perverts," as it has become the fashion 
 to call them in England, though we, not pre- 
 suming to pronounce theological judgments, may 
 be content to call them converts. Of this class 
 of sympathizers with the Pope we will not con- 
 sider the present court competent to make any 
 further remark. Our attention shall be directed 
 to those whose Papal proclivities arise from the 
 second of the two causes above alluded to. It 
 is not altogether easy to make this cause and its 
 operation, which are palpable and intelligible 
 enough to dwellers in the Eternal City, quite 
 equally intelligible to those who have never
 
 MBS. ATKINS' U DAY!' .187 
 
 been so. Perhaps the shortest phrase which 
 can be used to convey my meaning is to say 
 that Papal leanings are a specially "genteel" 
 thing in Rome. There are various causes which 
 tend to produce this result. In the first place, 
 " distinction " is, of course, the aim of all the 
 socially ambitious. But distinction achieved by 
 personal excellence or eminence is not within 
 the reach of us all. How, then, shall plain 
 Mrs. Tomkins, with her three daughters, attain 
 the social distinction for which her soul pants ? 
 She is more or less dimly conscious that none of 
 them are specially beautiful or witty or endowed 
 with that nameless quality of manner which has 
 the gift to charm. Perhaps she is not even very 
 rich. What shall Mrs. Tomkins and Miss Mary, 
 Miss Margaret and Miss Lucy Tomkins do to 
 " distinguish " themselves — to draw some hedg- 
 ing line around them which shall mark them as 
 not mere common creatures of the " undistin- 
 guished " crowd ? Mrs. Tomkins has already 
 had her cards printed as " Madame Lespinasse 
 Tomkynnes," and the young ladies write them- 
 selves respectively Miss Marie, Miss Marguerite, 
 and Miss Lucie Lespinasse Tomkynnes. (The 
 " Lespinasse " is a brilliant invention of Miss 
 Marie's, who was at a Parisian school conducted
 
 188 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 by a lady of that name.) This judicious modi- 
 fication of orthography has done much, but not 
 enough. The question still arises, What shall 
 Mrs. — we beg her pardon, Madame — Tomkynnes 
 do to show forth to all men that she and her 
 daughters are not as other dowagers and 
 daughters of dowagers are ? Turn Catholic ? 
 It is decidedly bon genre at Eome. But that 
 is a serious step. Some reminiscences of the 
 sturdy Protestantism of the dear departed John 
 Tomkins still oppose themselves to such a 
 measure. Then, too, the thing cannot be done 
 without a certain amount of trouble and incon- 
 venience. Above all, it is not necessary to the 
 end in view. It will serve the purpose equally 
 well — indeed, in some respects, better — to have 
 a leaning towards Catholic doctrine with strong 
 Papal sympathies, and a fund of tender regrets 
 for the " good old times," when, in vulgar fact, 
 Mrs. Tomkins was the joy of Tomkins's life in 
 London or New York, but when, according to 
 the views of life which now rule the family 
 fancies, she was basking in the smiles of car- 
 dinals and bishops, and life at Eome was " Oh ! 
 so different, my dear, from what it is now ! " So 
 Mrs. Lespinasse Tomkynnes becomes " very 
 high" (theologically speaking), talks about
 
 MBS. ATKINS' u DAy!' 189 
 
 monsignori, and affects to have special and 
 private information from the Vatican ; and 
 Miss Marie, Miss Marguerite, and Miss Lucie 
 have silver crosses on their prayer-books, and 
 carry gold crosses as big as a bishop's on their 
 fair bosoms. That in some respects such a 
 position as that assumed by the Tomkynnes 
 family has even greater advantages than those 
 belonging to a declared convert is as true as 
 that a fish lying on the bank engages less of 
 the fisherman's attention than one which is 
 nibbling at the bait. 
 
 But there are, as has been said, other reasons 
 why Eomanizing proclivities are a useful aid 
 to social ambition in Rome. Of course, all the 
 social sommites in Rome when Rome belonged 
 to the Pope were intensely Papal. In the days 
 before the advent of the King of Italy and the 
 new order of things the middle and professional 
 classes were those which were hostile to the 
 Papal government. Almost all those of the 
 Roman Upper Ten who were not cardinals or 
 bishops or prelates of one sort or another were 
 princes or otherwise titled nobles of families, 
 while almost all of them have sprung and dated 
 their wealth and greatness from some one of 
 the popes. The representatives of these families
 
 100 'THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 are great and magnificent in tolerably accurate 
 proportion to the degree in which the Pope 
 their founder was grasping and shameless in 
 the prostitution of his office to the worldly 
 aggrandizement of his family. To all these 
 men, and to their families and friends and 
 hangers-on, of course the new order of things 
 and the deposition of the Pope from his posi- 
 tion as a sovereign prince are gall and worm- 
 wood. The time will infallibly come when the 
 legislation of the new kingdom of Italy will 
 put an end to the social primacy of these noble 
 families. The law which compels the division 
 of the immense properties which have descended 
 in unbroken masses from generation to gene- 
 ration for so many centuries will in the course 
 of a few years destroy these great houses, or 
 at least their predominance. This enforced 
 division of property among all a man's chil- 
 dren at his death has been by far the hardest 
 blow of all which the great Roman families 
 have had to bear. It is the utter and inevit- 
 able destruction of all that was dearest to them. 
 Meantime, while the glory yet remains to them, 
 they are, as may be easily understood, violently 
 and bitterly Papal ; and, as is always the case 
 with a small and beaten party, while affecting
 
 MBS. ATKINS* "DAY" 191 
 
 exclusiveness tliey are well pleased to welcome 
 within their pale sympathisers and adherents 
 whom in the days of their prosperity they 
 would not have cared to admit. 
 
 I once knew a little girl who, having been 
 naughty, was sent to sit by herself in a back 
 room, from whence she was presently heard, 
 calling out at the top of her little voice to those 
 who had exiled her, " You shan't come into my 
 parlour ! I send you all out of this parlour ! " 
 Now, the adherents of the old regime at Rome 
 conduct their social lives very much on the 
 principle of this naughty little girl. Finding 
 that their opinions and sympathies condemn 
 them to isolation, they would fain persuade 
 themselves and others that they are forbidding 
 all the world outside their own circle from 
 coming into their parlour. Yet they are all 
 the time very much pleased by applications for 
 admission to it, and very ready to welcome the 
 applicants. The Mrs. Tomkynneses of the world 
 therefore find that the affectation of Papal sym- 
 pathies expressed with sufficient warmth may 
 entitle them to the much-coveted reward of 
 being admitted to a social circle which is at the 
 same time restricted and marked as a specialty, 
 and which consists mainly of those who lately
 
 192 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 were, and would still fain consider themselves, 
 the, apex of the social pyramid. 
 
 The Tomkinses transformed into Tom- 
 kynneses and the Wigrams transformed into 
 Fitzwygrammes are not called upon to make 
 any sacrifice whatever to their convictions and 
 opinions. For the outer world is by no means 
 intolerant in the matter, at least so far as the 
 foreign visitors and residents, with whom we 
 are here chiefly concerned, have anything to 
 say in the matter. None of the American or 
 English Eomans would in any degree reject 
 Mrs. Tomkynnes or her daughters, especially 
 if pretty, because of their Papalistic velleites. 
 A smile perhaps, or a word of gentle quizzing, 
 may mark their sense of the peculiarities of 
 those ladies behind their backs. And if such 
 occurred even before their faces, it would only 
 be attributed by the objects of it to the 
 natural jealousy excited by their own privi- 
 leged position. 
 
 It is a position which affords endless oppor- 
 tunities for little social passages indicating that 
 the occupiers of it belong to a sphere apart, a 
 very select and exalted sphere, with the ways 
 and manners of which the world around them 
 is wholly unacquainted. Take, for example, a
 
 MBS. ATKINS' "DAY?' 193 
 
 little scene sketched from the life as it occurred 
 not many days after the " meet " at the tomb 
 of Csecilia Metella. 
 
 The time is five o'clock in the afternoon : the 
 scene is Mrs. Atkins' drawing-room on the 
 third floor of a house in the Corso, on the best 
 — i.e., the left hand — side of the way as you go 
 toward the Piazza di Venezia. A long, steep 
 and rather dark stair conducts to Mrs. Atkins' 
 apartment. But nobody makes any objection 
 to that in Eome. On a third floor you are 
 farther out of the noise of the Corso and farther 
 from any suspicion of malaria. Besides, first 
 floors could not be found in favoured situations 
 for a quarter of those who wish to spend their 
 winter at Rome. Mrs. Atkins' apartment is 
 pretty, nicely furnished, and filled with all those 
 little elegances and knick-knacks that give a 
 homelike look to a room ; for she has passed 
 many seasons in Rome — is, indeed, as the 
 longer residents love to style themselves, 
 an " old Roman." Mrs. Atkins is a sensible 
 woman, and has not transmogrified herself into 
 Atkynnes ; and Marian and Nora Atkins are 
 cleverish, well-educated girls, with more brains 
 in each of their little brown heads than are 
 located under all the abundant blonde locks of 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 194 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 all the Tomkynnes family. It is Mrs. Atkins' 
 " day." Every dog has his day, the proverb 
 tells us ; and at Eome as much, or very near 
 it, may be said of every lady. It is the day of 
 the week on which visitors know that they will 
 find her " at home," and will also find tea and 
 cakes on the table and a knot of common ac- 
 quaintances assembled. On the present occasion 
 there are Mrs. Tomkynnes and her two younger 
 daughters, besides the Rev. Athanasius Abbott, 
 who is generally to be met wherever there is 
 a possibility of getting speech of Marian Atkins. 
 The pretty Marian is rather disposed to use him 
 as a quizzing-block, while Lucie Tomkynnes 
 decidedly sets her cap at him ; and he, with the 
 usual perversity of human nature, and despite 
 what ought to be the attraction of common 
 principles, very evidently prefers the gibes of 
 Miss Marian to the blandishments of Miss Lucie. 
 There are also present little Eeginald Courtney 
 Smith, good-natured, self-satisfied and vulgar as 
 ever ; an American artist, famous for knowing 
 everybody and everything in Eome, and for 
 being the prince of good fellows ; old Miss 
 Alderney, an English old maid of good 
 family resident in Eome from a time when 
 the " memory of men runneth not to the con-
 
 MBS. ATKINS "DAY. 195 
 
 trary" — one of those persons who, for some 
 inexplicable reason, are permitted by society to 
 do and say whatever they please with perfect 
 social impunity ; and one or two others. Miss 
 Marie Tomkynnes has not accompanied her 
 mother. She is less frequently seen in general 
 society, and is vaguely understood to be very 
 much occupied by some still more vaguely 
 conceived operations, the ultimate result of 
 which is to be that the Pope shall " enjoy his 
 own again." 
 
 Miss Nora Atkins is busy at the tea-table in 
 a further corner of the room, and scheming to 
 get rid of Courtney Smith, who hovers about 
 her ready to carry tea-cups and cream-jugs at 
 her behest, and torments her by his continual 
 iteration of " Miss Norar " in accents of the 
 purest Cockney tongue ; while the American 
 artist tempts her to laugh, and yet vexes her, 
 by gravely addressing her with an exaggeration 
 of a similar pronunciation, of which imitation, 
 happily, Mr. Smith remains wholly unconscious. 
 Near the fire Mrs. Atkins, Mrs. Tomkynnes, and 
 Miss Alderney are sitting together. And near 
 the window are Marian Atkins, the two Miss 
 Tomkynnes, and the Rev. Athanasius Abbott. 
 
 Miss Marguerite Tomkynnes is enlarging to
 
 196 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 her friend Miss Atkins on the angelic sweetness 
 and other saintly virtues of the Principessa 
 Clorinda Pereviggini, at whose house she and 
 her mother had been on the previous evening. 
 None of the other persons present, except Mr. 
 Athanasius Abbott (and he but slightly), have 
 the honour and glory of knowing any of the 
 members of that princely house; and Miss 
 Tomkynnes feels keenly the triumph of know- 
 ing that fact, and of being able to discourse 
 from her own experience of persons, things, 
 and places to which the mere outside world 
 cannot penetrate. 
 
 " Was it a hop ? " inquires jovial little Court- 
 ney Smith, who has just brought a cup of tea 
 to Miss Marguerite Tomkynnes. 
 
 That young lady rewards him with an anni- 
 hilating glance, in which contempt and astonish- 
 ment struggle for the mastery. Miss Lucie and 
 the Pev. Athanasius exchange glances. 
 
 " The balls at the Palazzo Pereviggini, which 
 those who remember them know were among 
 the most splendid in Rome, have not been given 
 since the robber troops of the usurper entered 
 the wails of Rome," says Miss Marguerite with 
 freezing dignity as soon as she is able to recover 
 herself. " I thought," she adds with a wither-
 
 MBS. ATKINS 1 "DAY.'" 197 
 
 ing sneer, " that everybody knew that, although 
 there may be persons incapable of comprehend- 
 ing the lofty sentiments which force the prince 
 and princess to feel that such doings would be 
 inconsistent with either propriety or delicacy of 
 feeling under present circumstances." 
 
 " But the receptions, I suppose, continue in a 
 quiet way ? " asks Marian Atkins. 
 
 " Receptions ? Well, the word seems perhaps 
 to imply something of a more general and mis- 
 cellaneous character than the very small 
 gatherings at the Palazzo Pereviggini. We are 
 never above a dozen — more often not above half 
 that number. Last night there was nobody but 
 the prince and princess themselves, the dear old 
 cardinal, and ourselves." 
 
 (N.B. Miss Marguerite is perfectly well 
 aware that Miss Atkins has not the smallest 
 idea what cardinal is intended, and expresses 
 herself in these indefinite terms for the twofold 
 purpose of indicating her own intimacy with 
 the " dear " individual in scarlet stockings 
 referred to, and of enjoying the sense of superi- 
 ority afforded to her by her friend's ignorance. 
 Miss Marian, on the other hand, is equally well 
 aware of the existence of these motives in the 
 mind of Miss Tomkynnes, and would not for
 
 198 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 the world gratify her by asking which member 
 of the Sacred College graced the Pereviggini 
 salons on the occasion in question.) 
 
 After pausing a while in vain for the expected 
 inquiry, Miss Marguerite resumes : "It is im- 
 possible to imagine, my dear, the charm of these 
 little reunions — the absence of formality, the 
 abandon, the simplicity. As for Clorinda- — for 
 the princess, I mean," continues Miss Mar- 
 guerite, pretending to pull herself up abruptly 
 and to be confused at making such a slip outside 
 of the pale of the select — "I cannot tell you 
 what she is — her grace, her sweetness, her an- 
 gelic patience, her refined intimacy of manner." 
 
 " Ah, yes. Well, I can tell you, my dears, 
 what the Princess Pereviggini is — or was, 
 rather," screams old Miss Alderney, who, with 
 her usual sharpness of ear, has heard all that 
 was passing from the other side of the room : 
 " /know all about her. She was the daughter 
 of the old Cavaliere Yacca, who had been the 
 late Pope's barber ! His Holiness made him a 
 cavaliere, and the Pereviggini man made the 
 daughter a princess." 
 
 " The stupid old thing is confounding the late 
 princess dowager with the present princess," 
 says Miss Marguerite very much under her
 
 MBS. ATKINS' "DAY." 199 
 
 breath, for she does not wish to be again over- 
 heard. " There was, I arn aware, some story 
 of a mesalliance. But that was not even the 
 mother of the present princess. What should 
 that spiteful old maid know about it ? I assure 
 you the Princess Clorinda is one of the most 
 elegant women you ever saw." 
 
 " I should think, from your description, that 
 the evenings at the Palazzo Pereviggini might 
 be perhaps a little dull," says Miss Marian, with 
 a sly look at the artist, who has just stalked 
 across the room from the tea-table to the window 
 where the group of people are sitting. 
 
 " Dull ! My dear girl, how little do you know 
 of the ways of that sort of people ! Dull ! I 
 never enjoy an evening anywhere else so much. 
 
 There is such a refinement, such a I hardly 
 
 know how to make you understand what I 
 mean." 
 
 " I can't say I do quite understand it," says 
 Miss Marian, again exchanging glances with the 
 young artist ; " but what do you talk about — 
 last night, now, for instance ? " 
 
 " Oh, there are so many things ! When 
 people have subjects of common interest you 
 know there can never be any lack of conversa- 
 tion. Then there is always news from the
 
 200 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 Vatican. To us it is a matter of the deepest 
 interest to hear from day to day how the Holy 
 Sufferer bears his martyrdom. And there is 
 hardly a day that the cardinal has not been at 
 the Vatican. He was telling us last night that 
 there never was anything equal to the angelic 
 resignation and patience with which that mar- 
 tyred prince endures his sufferings. It is one of 
 the most touching things I ever heard. And I 
 
 have reason to know 1 am hardly sure that 
 
 I am at liberty to mention this — one hears so 
 many things in the set we frequent that it would 
 be the blackest treason to repeat — but I think I 
 may say this much — and I am sure you won't 
 repeat it — that the intention is that His Holi- 
 ness shall be canonized after his death." 
 
 " Indeed ! I shall be sure not to mention it," 
 replies Miss Marian ; " but tell me, is the prince 
 brilliant in conversation ? I must say he does 
 not look like it." 
 
 " I was not aware, my dear, that you had any 
 acquaintance with the Pereviggini," cries Miss 
 Marguerite with the sharp and snappish accent 
 of one who feels that his special and peculiar 
 property is being invaded and encroached on. 
 
 " Nor have I, my dear Miss Tomkynnes, the 
 least in the world. But I saw an old gentleman
 
 MBS. ATKINS "DAY* 201 
 
 all alone in a carriage once on the Pincian, and 
 was told that it was the Prince Pereviggini," 
 returns Miss Marian. 
 
 " He is the most dignified of men ! the most 
 thorough gentleman ! a prince, every inch of 
 him ! " exclaims Miss Marguerite with gushing 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 " And that is not saying much for him, Miss 
 Marg'ret, for there's not so very many inches of 
 him, all told," puts in Mr. Courtney Smith. "I 
 saw the old boy once," he goes on, unheeding 
 and unconscious of the look of horror and dis- 
 gust on the Tomkynnes' faces — " I saw him 
 down on his marrow-bones in the Gee-soo church 
 — old fellow with a sugarloaf head and a snout 
 like a weasel." 
 
 " Mr. Courtney Smith is more accurate in 
 description than elegant in phrase," laughs Miss 
 Alderney from the other side of the room. 
 
 " Yulgar wretches ! " hisses Miss Marguerite 
 in a fierce whisper. "It is generally supposed," 
 she adds aloud with crushingly cold sarcasm, 
 "by those who are accustomed to the society of 
 such circles, that Prince Griulio Cesare Perevig- 
 gini is a complete specimen of the finished 
 gentleman." 
 
 "Well, he does look pretty nearly finished,
 
 202 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 poor old fellow ! and no mistake," returns the 
 elegant Mr. Courtney Smith. 
 
 Miss Marguerite does not consent to give any 
 answer to this speech save a superb toss of the 
 head. 
 
 "As for the shape of his head and the shape 
 of his nose, they are not his fault, poor old 
 gentleman ! " says Miss Marian Atkins, anxious 
 in her own house to smooth matters between 
 her guests ; " and I declare, for my own part," 
 she continues, with another shy glance at her 
 friend the artist, " that as far as my own 
 limited opportunities of observation have gone, 
 the type of head and nose which Mr. Smith has 
 so graphically described are very far from being 
 unaristocratic." 
 
 " Of course, my dear. Nobody would suspect 
 you of talking such vulgar nonsense," says Miss 
 Marguerite, wholly unconscious of the satire 
 lurking in her friend's little speech. " How I do 
 wish that it could be managed for you to know 
 the Pereviggini ! " she adds in a grateful gush. 
 
 " Oh, thank you," replies Miss Marian, rather 
 alarmed ; " but it would be quite out of our line, 
 you know. We are d'un altro mondo ; and then, 
 you know, though I have no doubt your friends 
 are very distinguished people and all that sort
 
 MSS. ATKIXS 9 "DAT." 203 
 
 of thing, tutti i gusti son gasti, and I am afraid 
 that we should find the evenings at the Pere- 
 viggini Palace just a little dull. We are world- 
 lings, you know, my dear Miss Tomkynnes, 
 and to introduce us to the princess would be 
 a mere casting of pearls before swine." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, you must not say that. But 
 to imagine that such society can be dull ! Of 
 course if you refuse to interest yourself in the im- 
 portant matters — in the hopes and fears, I may 
 say, without, I hope, breaking confidences which 
 
 are sacred — which occupy our thoughts 
 
 But why should you not feel an interest in 
 them ? " pleads Miss Marguerite, who has con- 
 ceived the sudden idea of making a convert of 
 her friend. 
 
 " I am afraid we are not the right sort for 
 that kind of thing," says Miss Marian, rising to 
 break off a conversation which is showing a 
 tendency to become troublesome. 
 
 And here we may drop the curtain upon a 
 little scene which may serve to illustrate one 
 of the phases of social life in Eome as it exists 
 at the present day.
 
 204 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 
 
 Among the things that " everybody does " at 
 Rome — that everybody does at least once, and 
 many do a great many times — is a visit by 
 moonlight to the Coliseum. It is an observance 
 sufficiently de rigueur to justify the formation 
 of a party for the purpose, being considered 
 as one of the special social aspects of Anglo- 
 American life in Rome. It is so much a thing 
 to be done that, in addition to all those who are 
 capable of feeling and appreciating the beauty 
 and the poetry of the thing, all those who 
 are utterly incapable of any such appreciation 
 must at least pretend to enjoy it. And no 
 doubt there are many who have little enough 
 of poetical feeling upon the subject, and whom 
 it would nevertheless be unjust to accuse of 
 having pretended to enjoy it when in truth 
 they get no enjoyment out of it. There are
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 205 
 
 enjoyments to be had out of such an occasion 
 which cannot be said exactly to depend on any 
 poetical appreciation, and which are yet genuine 
 enough in their kind. Why else was little 
 Courtney Smith so very anxious to be permitted 
 to join the party which was proposed by the 
 Atkins girls before they and their friends sepa- 
 rated on the occasion of the kettledrum at which 
 we requested the reader to be present some 
 little time ago ? Nor, as the judicious reader 
 will observe, is there anything to prevent the 
 most poetical-minded of the " maids who love 
 the moon," as Tom Moore sang, from equally 
 enjoying a visit to the Coliseum, regarded from 
 the latter of the two points of view which have 
 been indicated. The greater includes the less. 
 
 In truth, Fashion has sound reason to back 
 her in enforcing the rule that you must go and 
 see the Coliseum by moonlight. It is a most 
 lovely vision — a thing of beauty absolutely 
 matchless of its kind. So it is settled that all 
 those who had been present on the occasion of 
 the kettledrum at the house of Mrs. Atkins 
 shall take part in the projected excursion, and 
 that certain other mutual friends shall be in- 
 vited to join them. It is arranged that they 
 shall all meet at the entrance to the amphi-
 
 206 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 theatre nearest to the Via Sacra at ten o'clock ; 
 and Mr. Abbott has undertaken to give the 
 custode due notice to be there to receive them, 
 and to have a due supply of torches in readiness 
 at that day and hour. 
 
 The Tomkynnes party, bringing with them 
 Mr. Abbott on the box of their carriage, are the 
 first to arrive at the try sting-place. It is, a 
 superb moonlight night, and the shadows under 
 the yawning arches are all the more pitchy 
 dark from the contrast with that sharply out-; 
 lined blackness which the shadows cast by the 
 Italian moonlight show in so remarkable a 
 manner. Mr. Abbott, having busied himself 
 with handing the ladies from their carriage, 
 and with shawling and cloaking them with 
 the care which the Eoman night air renders 
 necessary, strolls into the area of the huge 
 amphitheatre with Miss Marguerite on his 
 arm. It is the first time either the lady or 
 the gentleman has been there since the recent 
 opening of the ground for the sake of archae- 
 ological explorations, and the removal of the 
 great cross from the centre and of the little 
 buildings called " stations " from their places 
 about the circumference of the area. A sympa- 
 thetic groan bursts from each of them.
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 207 
 
 " What will not this wretched government 
 profane ? " cries the reverend gentleman. 
 " Surely they might, have spared a spot sancti- 
 fied by such memories as this is ! " 
 
 " And so frightfully dangerous too ! " says 
 Miss Marguerite, pointing to the huge trenches 
 which have been excavated, and which, in 
 truth, all unprotected as they are, might form 
 a very treacherous pitfall to incautious stran- 
 gers, especially in the uncertain light. 
 
 " What can be expected ? What do such 
 people care for the protection of life and limb ? 
 Ah, my dear Miss Marguerite ! wrong is wrong 
 and right is right, and no sophistry will make 
 it otherwise," says the Reverend Athanasius 
 in the tone of a man who is propounding some 
 profound and newly discovered truth. 
 
 " I declare," returns Miss Marguerite, " that 
 if I had been alone I should have in all pro- 
 bability fallen into that hideous pit and broken 
 my neck. I am so impulsive, so — so absorbed 
 by the interest of the scene ! What a mercy 
 that I had your arm, Mr. Abbott ! " 
 
 " Of course I should not have thought of 
 letting you come into the building alone," says 
 the reverend and gallant gentleman with a 
 slight pressure of the arm that is hanging on
 
 208 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 his own. For not only are Miss Marguerite's 
 " views " such as tend to produce a perfect 
 sympathy between them, but she is besides an 
 exceedingly pretty girl, with large well-opened 
 blue eyes and a great abundance of glossy 
 chestnut-coloured hair. Her sister Lucie is 
 very like her, save that she has not to the same 
 degree the advantage of the very fine figure 
 which Miss Marguerite possesses, being some- 
 what shorter and somewhat more thickly made. 
 Miss Marguerite is magnificent in this respect ; 
 and it has been unfortunately repeated to her 
 that some artist has said that it was impossible 
 to conceive a more graceful outline than that 
 afforded by the kneeling figure of Marguerite 
 Tomkynnes as she was once seen bending over 
 a fald-stool in the nave of one of the Roman 
 churches. This unhappy speech had much to 
 answer for in the way of having confirmed the 
 young lady in her High Church and Roman- 
 izing convictions. It was dangerous ever after 
 to go into a church with her, for if there was a 
 fald-stool in the nave, as is generally the case 
 in the Roman churches, it was more than an 
 even bet that Miss Marguerite would feel a 
 desire to devote a minute or two to silent devo- 
 tion. And it must be owned that practice had
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 209 
 
 jDerfected lier in the art to such a degree that 
 nothing in the way of falling folds and sweep- 
 ing draperies could be more perfect than the 
 outline presented by the fall of her robe on such 
 occasions. Her rising, too, and her curtsey to 
 the altar are perfect studies, which the Eev. 
 Athanasius Abbott has on more occasions than 
 one attentively observed. 
 
 " I think our friends have arrived," says 
 Miss Marguerite, as she and her cavalier are 
 standing at the edge of the newly excavated 
 trench, looking down on the dim forms of arches 
 and huge walls, the substructure of the mighty 
 fabric, barely visible like huge architectural 
 ghosts in the uncertain moonlight. " I hear 
 the voices of the Atkins girls, and that loud 
 laugh of theirs which no sentiment of reverence 
 or feeling for time and place ever mitigates." 
 
 The Rev. Athanasius makes no response to 
 this little feminine tirade, and the two return 
 to the archway by which the area is entered on 
 the side of the Forum and the Yia Sacra, where 
 the ladies of the Atkins family, with Miss 
 Alderney occupying the fourth place in their 
 carriage and Mr. Reginald Smith on the box, 
 are alighting and joining their friends under 
 the archway. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 " How dark it is here ! And what a contrast 
 to the lovely flood of moonlight that is making 
 the Forum look— oh, so beautiful!" exclaims 
 Miss Nora Atkins. 
 
 " I declare that the gloom of these archways, 
 with their long vistas losing themselves in 
 pitchy darkness, is quite awful. I don't know 
 what one might not fancy," rejoins her sister, 
 Miss Marian. 
 
 " Perhaps you might fancy what Lord 
 Macaulay fancied here one night, when he was 
 quite a young man. Didn't you ever hear the 
 story? Old Templeman told it me the other 
 day. He's as good as an Annual Register for 
 all that has happened in Eome for the last 
 hundred years, or pretty nearly," says Mr. 
 Smith. 
 
 "No. Lord Macaulay? What was it, Mr. 
 Smith? Do tell us the story," replies Miss 
 Marian. 
 
 So, while waiting for the others of the party, 
 Mr. Smith repeats his anecdote, delighted to 
 find himself for once the centre of a knot of 
 listeners. " Well, Macaulay was at Eome when 
 he was quite a young man — before he was cele- 
 brated at all, you know — and one night he came 
 here to do just what we are doing. Only that
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 211 
 
 I am quite sure lie hadn't the luck of doing it 
 in such company," begins little Eeg Smith, 
 with an insinuating glance into the pretty eyes 
 of Nora Atkins. "Well, he was all by him- 
 self away there under those dark arches, where 
 it is as black as night, when all of a sudden a 
 man in a large cloak brushed past him rather 
 rudely, as Macaulay thought, and passed on 
 into the darkness. Macaulay 's first impulse 
 was to clap his hand to his watch-pocket ; and 
 sure enough he found that his watch was not 
 there. He looked after the man, who he 
 doubted not had stolen his watch as he brushed 
 past him, and peering into the darkness could 
 just distinguish the outline of a figure moving 
 farther away. Macaulay, without the loss of a 
 second, rushed after him, overtook him, and 
 seizing him by the collar, demanded his watch. 
 Now, Macaulay, whatever he may have done 
 afterward, could at that time speak very little 
 Italian, and understood none when spoken. So 
 he was obliged to limit his attack on the thief to 
 a violent shaking of him by the collar and an 
 angry repetition of the demand, * Orologio ! 
 orologio ! ' The man thus attacked poured 
 forth a torrent of rapidly spoken words, of 
 which Macaulay understood not one syllable.
 
 212 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 But he again administered a severe shaking to 
 his captive, stamping his foot angrily on the 
 ground, and again vociferating, ' Orologio ! 
 orologio ! " Whereupon the detected thief drew 
 forth the watch and handed it to his captor. 
 Macaulay, satisfied with his prowess in having 
 thus recaptured his property, and not caring for 
 the trouble of pursuing the matter any further, 
 turned on his heel as he pocketed the watch, 
 and saw nothing more of the man. But when 
 he returned to his apartment at night, his land- 
 lady met him at the door, holding out something 
 in her hand, and saying, ' Oh, sir,- you left your 
 watch on the table, so I thought it better to 
 take care of it. Here it is.' ' Good gracious ! 
 What is this, then ? What is the meaning of 
 it?' stammered Macaulay, drawing from his 
 pocket the watch which he had so gallantly 
 recovered in the Coliseum. It was a watch he 
 had never seen before. The truth was plain : 
 he had been the thief! The poor man he had 
 so violently attacked and apostrophized in the 
 darkness and solitude of the Coliseum arches 
 had been terrified into surrendering his own 
 watch to the resolute ruffian who, as he con- 
 ceived, had pursued him to rob him. The next 
 morning Macaulay, not a little crestfallen,
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 213 
 
 hastened to the office of the questor with the 
 watch and told his story. ' Ah, I see ! ' said 
 the questor: 'you had better leave the watch 
 with me. I will make your excuses to the 
 owner of it : he has already been here to 
 denounce you.' * So,' said old Templeman, 
 finishing his story, ' Solvuntur risu tabulce ,•' 
 which means, I take it," concluded . Mr. Smith, 
 " each man had his own watch again." 
 
 " What a capital story ! " says Nora Atkins. 
 
 "Se non e vero, e ben trovato," rejoins her 
 mother. 
 
 " Oh, but it really is true ; or, at all events, 
 it has been told as a true story in Eome for the 
 last thirty years at least," says Miss Alderney. 
 
 " Yes, and we are particularly obliged to Mr. 
 Smith for his judicious interpretation. Sol- 
 vuntur risu tabula? — Every man has his own 
 watch again ! Exactly so. Never omit to add 
 that conclusion to the story, Mr. Smith. It is 
 the gem of the anecdote," says the Eev. Atha- 
 nasius dryly. 
 
 " Here come the rest of our friends, I 
 think," says Mrs. Atkins as another carriage 
 drives up. " Mr. Smith, will you kindly see 
 if the custode is there ? " 
 
 The custode makes his appearance, accom-
 
 214 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 panied by an attendant bearing a lot of huge 
 torches ; and the party prepare to ascend to 
 the upper corridors of the ruined structure. 
 And then follows a little game at that finessing 
 which usually occurs on such occasions, and the 
 object of which is the arrangement of the party 
 into couples in such sort that, as far as may be 
 possible, affinities and their opposites shall not 
 be too violently shocked. 
 
 The Eev. Athanasius Abbott, by right of his 
 recognized honorary ciceroneship, and by virtue 
 of his admittedly superior knowledge of the 
 place and its history, conceives himself to have 
 a sort of right of first choice, and is about to 
 exercise it in favour of Miss Marian Atkins, 
 showing himself thereby false alike to the de- 
 mands of friendship and the ties of common 
 convictions and principles. For was not Miss 
 Marguerite looking forward to the privilege of 
 having his arm? But the American artist — 
 we will call him Mr. Julian Alford, or rather 
 " Julian Alford," without any Mister, for he is 
 one of those men who are always called by 
 their christened and surname by all the society 
 in which they live, when his friends do not call 
 him simply "Julian" — dexterously cuts him 
 out by his quickness in reaching Marian's side
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 215 
 
 and presenting an arm, which is as quickly ac- 
 cepted. The reverend cicerone, therefore, con- 
 cealing his disappointment as cleverly as he 
 can, falls back on community of sentiment and 
 friendship and devotes himself to Miss Mar- 
 guerite Tomkynnes. There is a moment of 
 frightful danger for poor Nora Atkins, who 
 sees herself exposed to the alarming chance of 
 a whole evening's tete-a-tete, or what is nearly 
 equivalent to that, with Mr. Reginald Courtney 
 Smith ; from which a twofold evil would have 
 resulted. Both for Nora, who would have had 
 the cheerful little man's arm, and for Lucie 
 Tomkynnes, who would not have had him, the 
 evening would have been spoiled. But Nora 
 is equal to the occasion. There is a certain 
 young German professor who has recently 
 arrived in Rome, charged, as is understood, 
 with some commission by his government to 
 collect archaeological information on some special 
 subject, and who had been acquainted with the 
 Atkinses at Dresden. He has been invited by 
 Mrs. Atkins to join the party, and is quite a 
 stranger to all the others assembled. Now, 
 among her other accomplishments, Nora Atkins 
 speaks German with perfect fluency, and at the 
 very moment when she is on the point of falling
 
 216 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 a prey to Mr. E. C. Smith she calls to her 
 German friend, " Yon mnst give me yonr arm, 
 Herr Doppelstanb. I am snre yon know more 
 about the Colisenm than anybody in Rome, 
 though yon have never seen it before. You 
 would not be a true German if you did not." 
 
 So Professor Doppelstaub and Lucie Tom- 
 kynnes are both made happy. Mr. Smith very 
 easily consoles himself for his disappointment, 
 and Nora has the advantage of a companion 
 who in sober earnest does really know more of 
 the history of the ruin they are visiting than 
 anybody else there. 
 
 As for Miss Marie Tomkynnes, she has al- 
 ready taken possession of the custode, and has 
 in five minutes reduced him to a state of 
 imbecile despair by the energy and the multi- 
 plicity of her cross-questions. 
 
 Mrs. Atkins, Mrs. Tomkynnes, and Miss 
 Alderney are attended by old Colonel Hallery, 
 an Englishman, a thorough gentleman and a 
 perfect good fellow, who knows everybody in 
 Rome, and whose mania it is to affect to re- 
 member everything during Heaven knows how 
 many tens of years past, and to have been as 
 well acquainted with everybody's father and 
 mother and uncles and aunts as he is with
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 217 
 
 themselves. Everybody laughs at Colonel 
 Hallery, and everybody likes him. He is an 
 old bachelor, and is upon the present occasion 
 accompanied by a cousin of his, Captain Danby 
 of the navy, who is also an old bachelor, and 
 has come to Rome to pass the winter with his 
 cousin. Colonel Hallery knows all about Miss 
 Alderney's people ; is equally aware that the 
 dear deceased partner of the early life of Mrs. 
 Lespinasse Tomkynnes was John Tomkins, 
 drysalter ; and with the smallest amount of 
 encouragement would declare that he perfectly 
 remembered Mrs. Atkins's ancestor going out 
 in the May-flower, and indeed, was the last to 
 shake hands with him on the quay before he 
 embarked. Miss Alderney peremptorily re- 
 quires that a man with a torch shall walk on 
 each side of her, and thus arranged the party 
 proceed to ascend to the upper portions of the 
 ruin. 
 
 Much has been done to render this ascent 
 safe and tolerably commodious. But some care 
 is required by moonlight visitors to avoid acci- 
 dents which might easily be serious. The often 
 misleading light of the torches, and the extraordi- 
 nary and constantly recurring contrasts between 
 the entire darkness of the completely covered
 
 218 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 parts of the corridors and the brilliancy of the 
 moonlight in every part of the huge pile ex- 
 posed to it, puzzle the eyes and unfit them to 
 be perfectly trustworthy guides. The stairs, 
 which are all of recent construction, are safely 
 protected from all danger save such as might 
 arise from bumping one's head against a more 
 solid brick vault here and there than most heads 
 would like to encounter. But there are open 
 fragments of exposed platform on the upper 
 floors utterly devoid of any sort of protection, 
 where a false step would infallibly be — and in 
 more than one recent case has been — fatal. 
 And then there are exquisitely picturesque 
 little fringes of flowering weeds growing 
 on the extreme edges of these treacherous 
 esplanades, and young ladies are apt to covet 
 specimens of such blossoms, to be treasured as 
 memorials of the visit ; and young gentlemen, 
 eager to anticipate each other in procuring 
 these objects, are apt to be more ambitious of 
 exhibiting carelessness than caution. Then, 
 again, the torchbearers naturally group them- 
 selves about what may t be called the " general 
 staff" of the party, where the elders and cha- 
 perons cluster together and debate the pros and 
 cons between the picturesque and the rheumatic.
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO TEE COLISEUM. 219 
 
 And then the long circular distances of arched 
 corridor, checkered with patches of alternate 
 ebon and ivory, stretching away out of sight 
 of the torches and of those gathered around 
 them, are exceedingly tempting ; and it is felt 
 to be very desirable to take the advice Walter 
 Scott gives as to Melrose, so far as to decide 
 that if to visit the Coliseum " aright " it is not 
 absolutely necessary to "go alone," yet it 
 should be enjoyed in " solitude a deux." There 
 are many flights of stairs to be mounted, and 
 chaperons and old maids and older colonels 
 move slowly over steep, half-lit steps. Young 
 maids trip where old maids stumble, and it is 
 a sort of triumph to conduct the precious charge 
 on your arm to the topmost tiers of the giddy 
 height of wall while the others of the party 
 are still making their slow way far below. But 
 such triumphs are really not without clanger, 
 especially to the uninitiated and inexperienced. 
 Julian Alford is certainly not one of these, how- 
 ever. He has made one in many a moonlight ex- 
 cursion to the Coliseum, has made drawings of it 
 by daylight from every spot of vantage, and is 
 almost as well acquainted with every part of the 
 fabric as the custode himself. He and Marian 
 Atkins reached the topmost accessible part of
 
 220 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 the building in safety, and there stand under 
 the shadow of the highest remaining bit of 
 wall, to the top of which there is no possibility 
 of climbing, gazing out on the huge masses and 
 the central area all bathed in a flood of silver 
 light. Beyond, they can see the enormous 
 shapeless masses of ruined structures which 
 cover the side of the Palatine Hill, and the 
 beautiful Arch of Constantine, and on their left 
 the church and monastry of St. Gregory on 
 their hill. 
 
 "What shall I offer you for your thoughts, 
 Miss Atkins ? " says Alford, after they have 
 remained gazing in silence, as if by mutual 
 consent, for a minute or two. 
 
 " You had better offer nothing, for they are 
 worth nothing, being very much the worse for 
 wear, and just what everybody else, I should 
 imagine, has thought when looking from this 
 spot at what we are looking at. I was thinking 
 of all the long phantasmagoria of sights these 
 old walls have seen since the hideous tyranny 
 of man's will over suffering thousands of his 
 fellows first called them into being ; and how 
 little — very little — of good the whole story has 
 in it. And then I was thinking — and that line 
 of speculation, I suppose, is shared only by our
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 221 
 
 own countrymen — how far it was an advantage 
 and how far a disadvantage to America to pos- 
 sess no such past and no such memorials of it." 
 
 " No such past ! Surely there can be no room 
 for doubt about it. It is that past, fully as 
 much as any more recent past, that has made 
 these people what we see them. Would you 
 wish to be the countrywoman of such ?" says 
 Alford quietly. 
 
 " No indeed ! Nor would I sell my birth- 
 right for such a mess of pottage, though the 
 conditions of sale were to place a Coliseum in 
 every city from Maine to Georgia. But I 
 confess that I am sometimes tempted to regret 
 the absence in our country of things that, while 
 they act as a connecting link between the 
 present and the past, form as it were a perpetual 
 school for the perception and appreciation of 
 mere beauty as dissociated from any ideas of the 
 profitable and the useful." 
 
 " Yes. And an artist should be the last to 
 fail in perceiving and acknowledging the value 
 of such memorials ; but surely they may cost 
 a people too much. Here come our reverend 
 High Churchman and Miss Tomkynnes. Sure 
 such a pair was never seen — so justly formed to 
 meet by Nature," adds the young man in a lower
 
 222 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 tone as the heads of the couple in question are 
 perceived emerging from the opening in the 
 vault through which the stair passes. 
 
 " And there come Nora and her professor. I 
 have no doubt Nora is well up by this time in 
 all the history of the Coliseum from its founda- 
 tion to the present day," says Marian Atkins ; 
 " and look," she continues, pointing down to a 
 terrace of the building far below the spot on 
 which she and Alford are standing, " there are 
 mamma and Mrs. Tomkynnes and Miss Alderney 
 down there. They seem to have given up the 
 idea of climbing any higher. Perhaps they can 
 see as much there as we can see here. At all 
 events, I don't think they mean to come up." 
 
 " I suppose not. Youth is the time for am- 
 bition, Miss Atkins," returns the young painter. 
 " As far as seeing the Coliseum goes, I think 
 the view from where they stand is as good or 
 better than that from here ; but they do not get 
 all the lovely view beyond which we are enjoy- 
 ing," he goes on, pointing as he speaks with 
 outstretched arm toward the varied ruins on the 
 Palatine, the Arch of Constantine, and the 
 church-crowned hill beyond it. " But, hallo ! 
 What have we now ? Look down there ! " he 
 exclaims, pointing to the ground in the interior
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 223 
 
 of the building, just as the others of the party, 
 with Miss Marie Tomkynnes still in possession 
 of the custode, come toward them. 
 
 The attention of all of them is attracted to a 
 sort of procession which is seen entering the 
 area from under the dark archway far below. 
 The figures which compose it are invisible in 
 the darkness, but become more distinctly clear 
 in the moonlight as they emerge from it into 
 the central space. Two men, apparently ser- 
 vants, walk first ; then come a couple of priests 
 in their cassocks and large ecclesiastical cloaks ; 
 and these are followed by an old and venerable- 
 looking man, whom the red band on his broad 
 triangular hat and the large gold cross shining 
 conspicuously on his breast show to be a bishop. 
 Two other priests and two more attendants 
 follow him ; and behind them troop a motley 
 throng of some twenty or thirty individuals, 
 mostly of the " street- Arab " class. The bishop 
 and his attendant priests walk slowly and with 
 mournful step, and with their heads bowed 
 down on their breasts, with the air of men 
 oppressed by the most profound grief. Slowly 
 the little procession advances to the exact centre 
 of the area — to the spot from which the huge 
 crucifix which had stood there for so many cen-
 
 224 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 turies has recently been removed. There they 
 all kneel down on the bare earth, and so remain 
 in silent prayer apparently for some minutes. 
 Then the bishop rises, and all the rest follow his 
 example, while one of the attendants draws forth 
 what appears to be a large handkerchief and 
 spreads it on the ground. The bishop draws 
 himself up to his full height — he is a tall, 
 gaunt-looking old man — and raising his eyes 
 and face, which the party above can see gleam- 
 ing white in the moonlight, to heaven, and 
 stretching out both his arms to their full extent, 
 seems to be speaking in an impassioned manner. 
 Of course his words and even the faintest sound 
 of them, are inaudible at the height above him 
 at which our friends are standing, but from the 
 papers on the following day, which were all 
 more or less full of the singular scene of which 
 they chanced to be witnesses, they learned that 
 he was a French t bishop, and that his words 
 had been a violent denunciation of the " usurp- 
 ing" government which, in the pride of its 
 triumphant impiety, had dared to desecrate 
 that venerated scene of so many Christian mar- 
 tyrdoms by the removal of the sacred symbol 
 which had so long hallowed the spot in the eyes 
 of all the nations of the earth.
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 225 
 
 His attendants and companions meantime 
 stand around with bowed heads and faces bent 
 toward the ground, while the outer circle, com- 
 posed of the ragamuffins who had followed them, 
 begins to show signs of a disposition to become 
 turbulent. The bishop, having brought his 
 tirade to a conclusion, once more bends down 
 and with his own reverend hands begins scraping 
 together a quantity of earth from the spot where 
 the cross had stood, and shovelling it into the 
 handkerchief. Having thus secured this portion 
 of the holy soil which has, as he pictures to him- 
 self, been moistened by the blood and mixed 
 with the ashes of uncounted martyrs to the 
 faith — though in fact many a foot of rubbish 
 and dust and decayed vegetable matter must 
 have long since covered with a less hallowed 
 stratum the ground his imagination makes 
 venerable to him — he again raises himself, and 
 is evidently about to begin a new oration, when 
 a police agent with a couple of followers steps 
 up to him and is unmistakably intimating to him 
 to depart. 
 
 What is said on either side is, as has been 
 hinted, inaudible to our friends. But they 
 learned on the morrow that the police agent 
 had told the right reverend prelate that he must 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 quit the Coliseum. " What ! " says he, speaking 
 in French, which the police agent is perfectly 
 well able to understand — probably he has been 
 selected and sent there for the express pur- 
 pose — " what ! is the Coliseum open to every 
 idle visitor who chooses to make it a lounging- 
 place, and forbidden only to those who come to 
 pray ? Is it not enough to have desecrated — " 
 
 " It will be better that you go home quietly, 
 monsignore," rejoins the police agent civilly. 
 
 " I am forbidden, then, to pray ? " 
 
 " Not forbidden to pray, your reverence, but 
 forbidden to make a disturbance. Look at these 
 people who have followed you ! We shall have 
 something disagreeable if you continue here. 
 You must leave the building." 
 
 So the bishop, protesting, denouncing, and 
 very angry, but carrying his handkerchief full 
 of sacred earth with him, retires. 
 
 The incident was much canvassed by the 
 Roman press, and commented on by either side 
 from the different points of view of each in a 
 manner which may be readily imagined. And 
 of course the scene they have witnessed, and 
 which is characteristic enough of one of the 
 special phases of Roman life as it is at the 
 present day, is talked over by our friends as
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 227 
 
 they go home to supper at the hospitable table 
 of Mrs. Atkins, with differences of opinion and 
 feeling, which reproduce with tolerable accuracy 
 the prejudices and principles which are dividing 
 the world around them. 
 
 " Upon my word, things are come to a strange 
 pass," says the Eev. Athanasius Abbott, " when 
 not only are the symbols of the faith abolished, 
 but it is forbidden to pray on the sites where 
 they stood ! " 
 
 " Braying ! " says Professor Doppelstaub in 
 an undertone to Miss Nora : " it may be French 
 braying, but it seemed a great deal more like 
 what we call cursing in Germany." 
 
 " It must have been a severe disappointment 
 to the right reverend gentleman not to have a 
 single stone thrown at him," remarks Julian 
 Alford. 
 
 " Disappointment not to be stoned ! What 
 do you mean ? " says Miss Marian. 
 
 " Of course it was a disappointment. If he 
 could only have had an eye or a tooth knocked 
 out with a stone, it would have suited his book 
 exactly. There would have been some hope 
 then that something might have been accom- 
 plished toward setting the Italian and the 
 French Governments by the ears. That is
 
 228 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 what our friend with the big gold cross yonder 
 would like well enough to be willing to pay 
 for it by having a stone in his eye. But 
 the Italians are too wide awake to give him 
 the chance," rejoins Alford. 
 
 " I do hope, for my part, that the French 
 government will take the matter up," says Miss 
 Marguerite Tomkynnes. " I shall have an 
 opportunity of speaking to the French Minister 
 at the princess's to-morrow night, and shall 
 certainly make a point of calling his attention 
 to the subject," adds the lady with a very mag- 
 nificently diplomatic air. 
 
 " You may depend upon it, Miss Tomkynnes, 
 that he knows all about it already, and regrets 
 the escape of his friend the bishop from stoning 
 just as much as the reverend gentleman himself 
 does. All these things are planned and can- 
 vassed, believe me," says Julian Alford. 
 
 "Well, people may feel differently, but I 
 declare, for my part, that I found the attitude 
 and the object of that venerable old man per- 
 fectly touching," remarks the Eev. Mr. Abbott. 
 " I regretted that I was not down in the area of 
 the building, so that I might have placed myself 
 at his side." 
 
 "That was just my own feeling," exclaims
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO THE COLISEUM. 229 
 
 Miss Marguerite gushingly. " Could we have 
 got down, the noble old man would at least 
 have felt that his sublime faith did not lack the 
 sympathy of congenial spirits." 
 
 " I'll undertake to get a lot of the dirt for 
 you, Miss Marguerite, from the very place 
 where he was scraping it up, if it will give 
 you any pleasure," says the gallant R. C. Smith : 
 " I should like to see the police prevent me!" 
 added the heroic youth with a genuinely British 
 contempt for all such officials off his own soil. 
 
 Miss Marguerite makes no answer to this 
 chivalrous proposition, but Mrs. Atkins quietly 
 says, " You are not a bishop, you know, and I 
 dare say Miss Marguerite's relations with the 
 diplomatic world of the Vatican will enable her 
 to procure a portion of the soil carried off by 
 the gentleman with the gold cross on his breast, 
 as Julian Alford calls him." 
 
 There is no unkindness in quizzing Mar- 
 guerite Tomkynnes, for she never by any chance 
 understands it. 
 
 " I'll say this much, at all events, for his 
 reverence," rejoins Alford — "that he made an 
 extremely picturesque and effective picture. I 
 think I will make a sketch of him as he stood 
 there denouncing 'the powers that be.' Shall
 
 230 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 I introduce you, Miss Marguerite, by his side ? — 
 a kneeling figure, you know, with a fragment 
 of marble for a fald-stool, arms outstretched, 
 head thrown back, hair dishevelled ? It would 
 be very effective." 
 
 Marguerite would much like to close with 
 this proposition at once, but Miss Alderney 
 interrupts with, " And I'll be put in as a Chris- 
 tian martyr — to the rheumatism, as we all shall 
 be if we stand about here any longer." 
 
 So they get into the carriages which are 
 waiting, and over Mrs. Atkins' well-spread 
 supper-table the moonlight visit to the Coliseum 
 is voted to have been a great success.
 
 ( 231 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE TIVOLI ROAD. 
 
 A few days subsequently to the highly suc- 
 cessful moonlight excursion to the Coliseum, 
 which has just been described, most of the 
 persons who had composed that pleasant party, 
 together with some others — chiefly Americans 
 and English — were assembled in the appartment 
 of Mrs. Atkins. It was a Friday, and, as all 
 Eome knows, Friday is Mrs. Atkins' " day." 
 That is to say, on every Friday throughout the 
 season, from three to six in the afternoon, that 
 lady throws open her rooms for the reception 
 of visitors, and, together with her charming 
 daughters, undertakes to be at home to welcome 
 them. The advantage of this popular arrange- 
 ment is twofold. It enables and authorizes 
 the mistress of the family to decline receiving 
 any morning visitors on the other six days of 
 the week ; and it insures the finding of her at
 
 232 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 home on the day named. It has also many 
 other advantages for the crowd of visitors 
 who are passing the season at Kome, and who 
 have nothing to do from morning till night 
 save to amuse themselves. Three hours, or 
 as large a portion of them as can be devoted 
 to one and the same house, are provided for — 
 inestimable boon ! There are also tea, cakes, 
 and a crowd provided for their enjoyment. 
 Everybody meets their acquaintances. And, 
 as is pre-eminently the case at the popular 
 house of Mrs. Atkins, you have a charming 
 hostess, and her two still more charming 
 daughters, to welcome and do the agreeable to 
 you. This latter feature is understood, indeed, 
 to be so essential a one for the successful 
 holding of one of these weekly levees, that those 
 ladies who have no daughters of an age to play 
 the required part, borrow them for the occasion 
 from those neighbours who have. It is a 
 peculiar arrangement ; evidently due in the first 
 instance to the bold initiative of some original 
 mind ; the rapidly spread imitation of which 
 attests its advantages. The young lady, or 
 ladies, go to " help Mrs. So-and-so to receive." 
 The duty thus assumed cannot be considered 
 altogether a sinecure. Such a vice-mistress of
 
 ON TEE TIVOLI ROAD. 233 
 
 the house must know everybody, and be ready 
 to talk to everybody. She must pro hdc vice 
 lay aside all her own preferences, and make no 
 more difference between the most inveterate 
 bore of an old fogy and the most specially 
 favoured partner of last night's ball, than Dido 
 did between Trojan and Tyrian. She must 
 pour out the tea with the untiring perseverance 
 of a Danaid, and must distribute cakes, and 
 still sweeter smiles and pleasant words, to all 
 comers. The institution, it will be seen, is 
 altogether and unmistakably to the advantage 
 of the male creatures, whose comforts are thus 
 catered for. Nobody ever borrows a young 
 gentleman to help her to receive her friends ! 
 
 Mrs. Atkins has no need, as we are aware, 
 to be a borrower after this fashion, though she 
 is frequently a lender ; for Marian and Nora 
 Atkins are very popular girls. And the 
 / Fridays of Mrs. Atkins are among the most 
 popular " days " observed by the Eoman foreign 
 society. 
 
 It is nearly six o'clock, and for half an hour 
 past has been so dark that the servants have 
 brought lamps into the room ; but the last of 
 the crowd has only just taken his leave, and 
 Mrs. Atkins and the girls are tired to death with
 
 234 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 their three hours' hard work. Nevertheless, it 
 is not without a sense of triumph that they 
 proceed to reckon up, as far as memory will 
 serve, the roll of their visitors, much as tired 
 sportsmen at the end of a long day make up 
 their bag. It is not accurately correct, how- 
 ever, to say that the last of the visitors has 
 taken his departure ; for Julian Alford, the 
 young painter, is lingering yet a few minutes. 
 But he is a privileged person, and the domestic 
 conversation goes on before him just as freely as 
 if he were one of the family. 
 
 "Upon my word, I think that Eome gets 
 fuller and fuller every year!" says Nora Atkins, 
 throwing herself into an easy-chair ; " you will 
 have to get larger rooms, mamma, if things go 
 on in this way ! The people could hardly move 
 in the room to-day ! " 
 
 " You accept it then, as a law of Nature, that 
 Mrs. Atkins must under all circumstances pro- 
 vide tea and cake every Friday for all the 
 foreigners in Eome!" says Julian Alford. "If 
 the great Mr. Cook were to arrive with a 
 caravan of fifty followers, I suppose they would 
 all be brought here, and the enterprising leader 
 would put 'comprising tea at Mrs. Atkins's ' into 
 his next advertisement.
 
 ON TEE TIVOLI BO AD. 235 
 
 " Not quite that, I hope, Julian ! " replies 
 Mrs. Atkins, suppressing a yawn ; " but, I don't 
 know how it is, somehow or other one gets to 
 know everybody ; and I confess I like to see 
 the people." 
 
 " I don't know whether it is a law of Nature, 
 as Julian says, any more than I know who or 
 what it is that makes half the laws we find 
 ourselves obeying," returned Nora ; " but I am 
 inclined to think that the Cook caravan would 
 all have to come, if that great man chose them 
 to do so." 
 
 " Well, my dear, in all things one must take 
 the good with the bad, you know," says Mrs. 
 Atkins, with a placid sigh. 
 
 " But that is just the question. Must one do 
 so ? " rejoined the young artist ; the real fact 
 being that his philosophy on the subject was 
 inspired by Marian's look of fatigue, and by 
 the remembrance of a rather undue share of her 
 attention which he had seen the Rev. Athana- 
 sius Abbott monopolizing at the tea-table. 
 
 Alford has been standing with his hat in 
 his hand while the foregoing sentences were 
 being exchanged, and now puts out his hand 
 to Mrs. Atkins to take his leave. " I wanted," 
 he says as he does so, " to propose a picnic
 
 236 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 scheme, which I think the weather is now fine 
 enough for, but I am sure you are too tired to 
 listen with any favour to such a proposal now. 
 May I come and talk it over to-morrow 
 morning ? " 
 
 " A picnic ! It will be the first of the season ! 
 How delightful ! There is nothing I like so 
 much as a good picnic ! But do stay and tell 
 us all about it now ! I am not a bit tired . . . 
 if mamma is not too tired to hear us talk," 
 adds Marian, brightening up, and looking at 
 her mother. 
 
 " Not at all too tired, my dear, even to take 
 part in the talk myself! Sit down again, 
 Julian, and bring your motion before the house. 
 Dinner will not be ready for half an hour yet," 
 says Mrs. Atkins ; and Alford needs no further 
 pressing. 
 
 " If I am not mistaken," he continues, sitting 
 down again, " you have never had a picnic at 
 the most enticing place for the sort of thing 
 anywhere round Rome — the Villa Adriana. 
 I don't pretend to know what are the elements 
 needed to constitute what Miss Marian calls a 
 good picnic ; but as far as the locale is concerned, 
 I do not think that all the world could furnish 
 you with a better."
 
 ON THE TIVOLI ROAD. 237 
 
 " Mr. Alford knows just as well as anybody, 
 and better than many people, what makes a good 
 picnic," says Marian with pretended pique. 
 
 " But we have seen the Villa Adriana, if we 
 did not picnic there. We took it on our way 
 to Tivoli," observes Nora. 
 
 " Seen it ! You have seen nothing of it ! I 
 know the place well ; and you must permit me 
 to assure you that such a visit as you speak of, 
 taking it, as you say, on the way to Tivoli, can 
 show you nothing of the place, or at all events, 
 cannot enable you to enjoy it," rejoins the 
 artist. 
 
 "It is quite true. There can be no enjoy- 
 ment in being driven through even Paradise 
 itself in the way we were hurried on that day 
 we went to Tivoli ! " observes Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 " No ; to be sure not. I know all about it ! 
 I know how the thing is done ! I have seen 
 people at it by the dozens ! Can we do Tivoli 
 in the day, so as to be back to Rome in time for 
 dinner ? That is the question asked. And the 
 guides, and the carriage proprietors, and the 
 innkeepers, and the donkey-boys have decided 
 that the answer is to be in the affirmative ; 
 Tivoli can be done in the day, including the 
 Villa Adriana ! You put yourself under an
 
 238 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 experienced tourist-driver — the feat is accom- 
 plished ; you get back to a seven or eight 
 o'clock dinner in Rome, and add Tivoli and 
 its accessories to the list of your doings. The 
 Villa Adriana, the terrestrial paradise which 
 the Emperor Hadrian constructed for himself, 
 striving to accumulate within its ten miles of 
 circumference all that the world possessed of 
 rare and beautiful — the most remarkable and 
 interesting remnant of the old classical life that 
 has remained to us — is 6 taken ' on the way to 
 something else, as Miss Nora has said — is 
 crammed into a day already far too crowded, 
 and the victims to sight-seeing rush through 
 it like heated, over-driven cattle, and then say 
 that they have done it ! " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed Mrs. Atkins ; 
 " bravo, Julian ! I never remember your 
 coming down on the Philistines so fiercely 
 before ! " 
 
 " I protest it's all true, every word of it ! I 
 remember well our day at Tivoli ; and we were 
 Philistines of the Philistines for our pains," 
 says Marian ; " but what," she adds eagerly, 
 " were you saying about ten miles in circum- 
 ference ? A villa ten miles in circumference ! 
 The idea takes one's breath away ! "
 
 ON TEE TIVOLI ROAD. 239 
 
 " II y a de quoi ! " returns Alford ; " such was 
 simply the case ! But then, you know, the Em- 
 peror had assembled within his walls a sort of 
 specimen museum of the entire world. There 
 were theatres of all sorts, a Vale of Tempe, a 
 Tartarus, an Elysian Field, libraries, barracks, I 
 don't know how many temples to all sorts of 
 gods, Eoman and foreign, all which you may 
 read in the guide-books at your leisure. The 
 fact is, that whether as a mere assemblage of 
 landscape beauties, or as a means of enabling 
 the imagination to form some picture of the 
 highest luxury which the old civilization had 
 to offer, the Yilla Adriana is one of the spots 
 best worth seeing, not scampering over, in all 
 the world." 
 
 " But we are wandering away from the pic- 
 nic ! The picnic's the thing ! Tell us what you 
 were going to propose ? " says Nora. 
 
 " Simply that we should give the whole of a 
 long day to the Yilla ; not go to Tivoli at all — 
 drive direct to the Yilla, let the horses go up 
 the hill to be stabled at the town, and come 
 down for us at sunset, for a drive home by 
 moonlight. And a picnic it must be perforce, 
 unless you would like to fast from sunrise to the 
 going down of the same, for there is nothing in
 
 240 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 the way of food to be had there. There is the 
 home of the farmer and superintendent, where 
 fire and facilities for making coffee may be had 
 . . . unless, indeed, you would think it more 
 amusing and picturesque to make our own fire, 
 gipsy-fashion, and . . . and how charming Miss 
 Marian would look in a scarlet hood ! " 
 
 Thus Julian Alford, artist quand meme. 
 
 " But bending over a cauldron, not a coffee- 
 pot ! I bargain for a cauldron ! " returned 
 Marian, laughing. 
 
 " But I bargain for the coffee-pot, cauldron or 
 no cauldron," puts in her mother. 
 
 " I like the idea immensely ! Oh, the picnic 
 by all means ! But now comes the grand ques- 
 tion in all picnics — which may perhaps lead 
 Mr. Alford to the perception of what Marian 
 means when she talks about a ' good ' picnic — 
 the question who we shall have ? " said Nora. 
 
 " Oh, I think 'the more the merrier' is a good 
 rule in a case like this ! We have ten miles in 
 circumference to spread incompatibilities over," 
 says Alford. 
 
 " Well, I am not so sure of the goodness of 
 your rule," says Marian somewhat doubtfully. 
 
 " Of course we must have Mr. Abbott ! He is 
 always such an excellent cicerone ! " says Nora,
 
 ON TEE TIVOLI ROAD. 241 
 
 with a rather wicked glance at the young 
 artist. 
 
 " Why Abbott before all the world ? There 
 are people who know quite as much about the 
 Villa Adriana as Abbott does ! Not that / have 
 any objection to him — not the least in the 
 world ! Of course Miss Norar Ratkins will 
 have no objection to asking Mr. Reginald 
 Courtney Smith to join us — he is such an 
 admirably appreciative lover of the beauties 
 of nature," says Alford. 
 
 " Have Mr. Smith, by all means ! " returns 
 Nora ; " with Lucie Tomkynnes for a para- 
 tonnerre I shan't be afraid of the lightning 
 descending upon me ! " 
 
 "Do you know, good people, that I doubt 
 whether you are making your selection upon 
 the wisest principle," says wise and clever Mrs. 
 Atkins ; " don't let us attempt to re-enact the 
 old precieuse rule — ' Nul riaura de T esprit hors 
 nous et nos amis ! ' Don't let us be too exclusive. 
 I think we ought to let all our party of the 
 other night join us, if they feel disposed to do 
 so. Take a pencil, Nora, and scribble a list of 
 the names." 
 
 Nora took a pencil and prepared to act as 
 secretary, while her mother proceeded to re- 
 
 VOL. I. li
 
 242 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 capitulate the members of the moonlight party 
 to the Coliseum. 
 
 " Mrs. Tomkynnes and her three daughters." 
 
 " Mrs. Lespinasse Tomkynnes, if you please, 
 ma'am ! " corrects Alford ; " but is not that 
 rather an overpowering dose of one ingredient ! 
 Shall not we be over-weighted with such an 
 avalanche of excruciating gentility and super- 
 fine ultramontanism ? " 
 
 " My dear sir, what can you do when a 
 mother has three daughters ? Besides, probably 
 Miss Marie will not show us the light of her 
 countenance ! " says Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 " Oh, yes; the Tomkynneses, of course ! They 
 are good-natured girls enough. And, for my 
 part, I hope Marie will come — there is no better 
 fun than Marie Tomkynnes ! " says Marian. 
 
 " Well, mamma ; I have put them down. 
 Who next ? " says Nora, uplifted pencil in 
 hand. 
 
 " Miss Alderney and her old friend Colonel 
 Hallery," continued Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 " Now, mamma ! I declare it's too bad to 
 pair off people in that unauthorized way ! " says 
 Marian. " What would Miss Alderney say if 
 she heard you ? " 
 
 " She would probably say, my dear, that it
 
 ON TEE TIVOLI ROAD. 243 
 
 was a very proper attention to provide her with 
 a walking stick, which she can use or not at 
 any moment she may choose," returned her 
 mother. 
 
 " But what would Colonel Hallery say to the 
 arrangement ? " asks Julian Alford. 
 
 " Oh, the colonel would in all probability 
 declare that he perfectly well remembered dan- 
 cing with her grandmother at the court of 
 George the Third, and would be charmed to 
 make himself useful." 
 
 " Very well ! Miss Alderney and Colonel 
 Hallery ; and of course his cousin Major Danby. 
 I don't like him quite so well, though, as our 
 old friend the colonel. But we are getting on 
 very slowly with our list," says Nora ; " don't 
 let us have any more discussion, mamma ; you 
 tell me the names and I will write them down." 
 
 " I think we have named pretty nearly all 
 our party of the other night. We must not 
 forget our Dresden friend though, Herr Doppel- 
 staub," says Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 And Herr Doppelstaub was voted for by 
 acclamation. 
 
 " And now shall we ask anybody else ? " says 
 Nora, with pencil still in hand. 
 
 " Let us see ! We are three, four Tom-
 
 244 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 kynneses, and Miss Aldemey ; — that makes eight 
 ladies ; and of gentlemen we have Alford, Mr. 
 Abbott, Mr. Smith, the Colonel and his cousin, 
 and Herr Doppelstaub ; — only six. I suppose 
 we ought to have a couple more gentlemen — 
 eh, girls ? " says Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know ! Who is there, that we 
 should be the better for ? " says Marian. 
 
 Nora gives her a laughing glance with the 
 tail of her eye, the full meaning and translation 
 of which perhaps might be interpreted into, 
 " Yes, my dear ; we know that you are quite 
 sufficiently provided with the article in question ; 
 but perhaps there might be a more extensive 
 demand on the part of some others." 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you who I should like to ask," 
 says Mrs. Atkins,— " that young Anderson, who 
 came to Eome just before Christmas. I should 
 like to see something more of him, for I knew 
 his mother very well long years ago in Balti- 
 more. Susie Mailing and I were great friends 
 before we were either of us married," said 
 Mrs. Atkins with a sigh, as her mind goes back 
 to all that had happened and to the sundering 
 of old friendships since those old times. Have 
 you made acquaintance with him, Alford ? — you 
 generally know everybody.
 
 ON THE TIVOLI ROAD. 245 
 
 " Oh yes ! I have seen hini more or less. 
 He is like Nimrod, a mighty hunter ! He 
 always leads the field. They say that he is 
 awfully rich," returns Alford. 
 
 " I suppose he must be. His father and his 
 uncle were both wealthy men, and he has 
 inherited all that both of them had to leave. 
 But no doubt their property suffered in the 
 war," returns Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 " And he has been educated at Oxford, has he 
 not?" asks Nora; "I heard somebody saying so." 
 
 " Yes, he has only just left the university. 
 At his father's death — having lost his mother, 
 my old friend, years before — he became his 
 uncle's ward. And Mr. Jonas Anderson's wife 
 was an Englishwoman, and he had resided 
 many years in Liverpool, and had many 
 English connections and friends. And so it 
 came to pass that the young man was sent to 
 Oxford ; and very shortly afterwards his uncle 
 died. And now I suppose he will be going 
 home to take possession of his property." 
 
 " Let us have Mr. Anderson by all means ! " 
 says Nora, adding his name to her list. " I like 
 a man who leads the field ; and I am curious to 
 see what an Oxford man is like. By all means 
 let us have Mr. Anderson ! "
 
 246 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 " If we can get him ! " says her mother. 
 
 " Oh ! No fear of that ! He'll jump at the 
 chance — I'll answer for him ! I am not sure that 
 I shall like him any the better for his Oxford 
 education ! " says Alford, not much disposed 
 apparently to welcome the new comer to the 
 little party with open arms. 
 
 " Nor am I sure ; but it may be that I shall," 
 says Mrs. Atkins quietly. " And now girls, 
 that makes seven gentlemen to our eight ladies. 
 Who shall be the eighth lord of creation to 
 make us perfectly symmetrical ? " 
 
 " Will you let me bring a friend of mine ? " 
 says Alford — " I think you must have met him, 
 though he does not go much into society ; — 
 Walter Weston. He is not portentously rich, 
 being a poor sculptor ; and he has not been 
 educated at Oxford ; but he is a right good 
 fellow, and a gentleman." 
 
 " Yes ; I remember meeting him at the 
 Farrants'. He seemed a very quiet and shy 
 young man, I remember, but very pleasing 
 in appearance," observes Marian. 
 
 " Yes ! And I'll tell you what he has ; — he 
 has as charming a tenor voice as you ever heard, 
 and can sing at sight anything you put before 
 him. Would it not be nice to have some sing-
 
 ON THE TIVOLI ROAD. 247 
 
 ins: anion & the ruins before we start home- 
 wards ? " pleads Alford. 
 
 a 01i! Delightful!" cried both the girls at 
 once. " Oh, mamma, let us have Mr. Weston by 
 all means ! There, I have put his name down ! 
 And now our party is quite symmetrical, as 
 mamma says," adds Nora. 
 
 " And now for the when ? " says Marian. 
 
 " With this weather, I should say the sooner 
 the better ! " remarks Alford. 
 
 " With all my heart ! I suppose one clear day 
 will be enough for getting together our company 
 and making our preparations," says Mrs. 
 Atkins, who is, to tell the truth, always as 
 ready for a frolic as her daughters. " Let us 
 say Monday : that will give us two days for our 
 invitations." 
 
 " And now how about the carriages ? How 
 shall we arrange ourselves ? " cries Nora. 
 
 " Alford can come with us, and there will 
 be a place for Herr Doppelstaub on the box, 
 if he will accept of it. That will be five. No 
 doubt the Tomkynneses will give Mr. Abbott a 
 seat on their carriage. That will make ten," 
 counts Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 "Anderson will drive his own trap, of course; 
 and I dare say he will offer my friend Weston 
 the place by his side," says Alford.
 
 248 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 " That makes twelve provided for," says 
 Nora. 
 
 " Then little Smith will doubtless he fired 
 by emulation, and drive himself out too. You 
 know the little man claims to be great in all 
 horsey matters," remarks Alford. 
 
 " But who is to go with him ? We can't 
 expect him to drive himself out alone in solitary 
 dignity," says Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 " Eeally I don't see what we can do for him 
 in that respect . . . unless, indeed, Miss Norar 
 Eatkins could be induced to share his vehicle," 
 returns Alford, with a laughing glance at that 
 young lady. 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Alford ! Miss Norar-r-r 
 R-r-ratkins is not disposed to do anything of 
 the kind ! " said Nora, with a mock-grave 
 courtesy. " But if you are benevolently dis- 
 posed, you can comfort the solitude of Mr. 
 Smith yourself." 
 
 " Christian charity is a beautiful thing ; but, 
 like other matters, has bounds. I decline to 
 sacrifice in Mr. Smith's behalf the offer that has 
 already been made to me. No ! I'll tell how 
 it must be ! We must make him take that 
 smart little round-about officer in her British 
 Majesty's Service, Major Danby ; and then the
 
 ON TEE TIVOLI ROAD. 249 
 
 old colonel can go tete-a-tete with Miss Alder- 
 ney in her brougham. Never say that I am 
 not great as an administrator and tactician ! " 
 cries Alford. 
 
 " You show yourself very great ! Only don't 
 you think that we are disposing of our friends 
 in a somewhat Napoleonic spirit ? " says Mrs. 
 Atkins, looking up with a smile. 
 
 " I am sure we are exercising a very paternal 
 despotism. But don't you know how many 
 people there are who are glad to be told what 
 to do, if it is what is not particularly disagree- 
 able to them. I will guarantee that all our 
 convives will fall into the arrangements we 
 have made for them with the utmost alacrity. 
 You will see that I am right," says the young 
 painter, who, to say the truth, is one of those 
 persons who seem to have the gift of making 
 people and things go the way they would have 
 them, while the persons so controlled think all 
 the time that they are acting on the suggestions 
 of their own wills, only it will sometimes happen 
 that two specimens of this class of persons meet, 
 like Greek to Greek, and then is apt to come 
 such a tug as shows that they are not well 
 adapted for shining in the same hemisphere. 
 
 " Will you, then, undertake in your capacity
 
 250 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 of dictator to make the necessary arrangements 
 with the young men ? I will write a note to 
 Mr. Anderson, of which perhaps you will have 
 the goodness to be the bearer. I will write, 
 too, to Mrs. Tomkynnes, and to Miss Alderney, 
 and I will ask her if she can give the colonel 
 a place in her carriage. Mrs. Tomkynnes and 
 Miss Alderney and I will see to the commis- 
 sariat." 
 
 Thus Mrs. Atkins — rising as she spoke to 
 signify that the business was settled and the 
 session at an end. A note of invitation was 
 hastily scribbled to Mr. Anderson, not, we may 
 be sure, without some reference to the old days 
 when his mother and Mrs. Atkins had been 
 cronies as girls ; and Mr. Alford took his leave, 
 promising to call and report progress the next 
 afternoon. 
 
 Here, if the prayer of poor Nathaniel Lee, the 
 mad poet, could be granted in our favour, and 
 the gods would but " annihilate both space and 
 time," we might doubtless get some insight into 
 the characters of those members of the Anglo- 
 American Roman colony, whom we purpose 
 accompanying on their excursion to the Yilla 
 Adriana, by listening to the conversation of the 
 Atkins family as they sate at dinner ; and,
 
 ON TEE TIVOLI BO AD. 251 
 
 following them to the musical party to which 
 they were engaged in the evening, we might 
 ascertain how it came to pass that, before they 
 returned home at night, they knew that all 
 their invitations had been accepted ; how the 
 two mammas and Miss Alderney had sate in 
 private council on the question of " the vivres;" 
 and how all was arranged and promised well 
 for the projected trip. But as the gods will 
 do nothing of the kind for us, we must content 
 ourselves with briefly stating that, despite some 
 protestations on the part of late risers, which 
 were summarily overruled by Julian Alford, 
 it was finally settled that all the party with 
 their respective vehicles should find themselves 
 at the Porta di San Lorenzo at nine in the 
 morning on the Monday. 
 
 The Monday morning came, as bright and 
 delicious a spring morning as ever gilded the 
 domes of the Eternal City, or flecked with 
 capricious lights and shades the slopes of the 
 Alban and the Sabine Hills. And what was 
 far more rare and surprising, all the different 
 component parts of the party were at the tryst- 
 ing place within a quarter of an hour of the 
 time named for meeting. Miss Alderney's car- 
 riage was the first to arrive on the little open
 
 252 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 space before the low-browed old Roman arch 
 of the ancient gateway — low-browed, not 
 because the Roman builders planned it so, but 
 because the soil has risen almost up to the 
 spring of the arch. 
 
 " Military time, my dear madam ! " cries the 
 colonel triumphantly, drawing his chronometer 
 from his pocket as he speaks ; " here we are 
 to the minute ! I never keep people waiting ; 
 . . . and don't like to be kept waiting." 
 
 He had hardly spoken when George Ander- 
 son drove up, with Walter Weston by his side 
 on the box of a break, in which were a couple 
 of servants, and a hamper which old hands at 
 Roman picnics would have recognized at once 
 as a dozen of champagne from Spillman's. He 
 had been by good fortune at the musical party 
 on the Friday evening, and had there been 
 introduced to Miss Alderney, who now made 
 him acquainted with the colonel — who, of course, 
 recollected his father perfectly well immediately. 
 In another minute the Atkinses' carriage drove 
 up, with the three ladies and Julian Alford 
 inside, and Herr Doppelstaub in a high state 
 of good humour on the box, despite the diffi- 
 culties of his position, occasioned by a huge 
 basket between his legs and those of the coach-
 
 ON TEE TIVOLI BO AD. 253 
 
 man. But this inconvenience was very soon 
 removed at the instance of Anderson. 
 
 " Would it not be better, Mrs. Atkins," says 
 he, " to put that awfully large basket into the 
 drag ; I brought it on purpose to take such 
 things. But that is an awful big one ! "What 
 can it contain, I wonder ! — ladies' ball dresses, 
 I should have thought, only that I did not 
 know you meant to have a dance. But here 
 comes just such another ! — all the. ball dresses 
 of the Miss Tomkynneses, no doubt. Well, there 
 is plenty of room in the drag." 
 
 " You have got the materials for your own 
 toilette there in a sufficiently capacious hamper, 
 I see ! " says Miss Alderney. 
 
 And then the carriage of the Tomkynneses' 
 division drives up ; and shortly afterwards, the 
 party is completed by the appearance of 
 Reginald Smith and the major, who have 
 apparently already become intimate. 
 
 Some of the assembled party would, no doubt, 
 have considered that a better arrangement 
 might have been made with regard to the 
 distribution of persons among the five vehicles 
 in attendance. But it was difficult to propose 
 a change then and there ; and any hopes that 
 might have been conceived with reference to
 
 254 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 such matters had to be adjourned to the home- 
 ward drive in the evening. Mrs. Atkins pru- 
 dently gives her driver a hint to allow the two 
 young men to precede his carriage, and Mrs. 
 Tomkynnes and Miss Alderney follow her ex- 
 ample. So George Anderson in his break, and 
 Reginald Smith in his hired trap, lead the way ; 
 and if the spirit of Jehu should, as is not im- 
 probable, enter into the two charioteers, no 
 bones will \>e exposed to danger save the 
 comparatively unimportant ones of those gentle- 
 men themselves, and those of Walter Weston 
 and the major. Off they go, at a pace 
 that makes the custom-house officer at the gate 
 look after them with a shake of the head ; and 
 the carriages of Mrs. Atkins, Mrs. Tomkynnes, 
 and Miss Alderney follow at a more sober rate. 
 
 None of the roads leading from the gates of 
 Rome are less pleasant for the first few miles 
 than that which starts from the Porta di San 
 Lorenzo. The carriageway is always covered 
 with either a stratum some ten inches thick of 
 dust or a similar amount of mud. Footpath there 
 is none of any kind ; the road runs between 
 high walls, which entirely shut out the view 
 over the Campagna ; and, to complete the 
 charms of the drive, it is always very much
 
 ON THE TIVOLI EOAD. 255 
 
 thronged by carts, which, driven with the utter 
 recklessness and want of skill peculiar to Roman 
 carters, does not tend to make travelling plea- 
 sant for other charioteers. Soon, however, the 
 Basilica of San Lorenzo is reached ; and soon 
 after that, matters begin to improve somewhat. 
 Not that the drive is a pretty one for a con- 
 siderable distance further. But there are, at 
 all events, occasional peeps over the Campagna, 
 and glimpses of the hills that bound it, which 
 are always beautiful. At a distance of four 
 miles from the city the Anio is crossed — the 
 " prseceps Anio " of Horace, the precipitous 
 nature of which makes the cascades at Tivoli, 
 which all the world goes to see. Its modern 
 name is the Teverone. 
 
 " What ! " exclaims Anderson, as he crosses 
 the new bridge at a spanking trot ; " is it that 
 ditch that all the world has conspired to make 
 famous for the last two thousand years ? " 
 
 "Yes; that little ditch is the 'praeceps 
 Anio!''' answers Walter Weston. "The no- 
 table thing is that these people should have 
 somehow or other made their ditches more 
 famous than the fine rivers of other folks, and 
 their molehills more conspicuous than the moun- 
 tains of other lands ! "
 
 256 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 " Teverone, they call it," remarks Mr. Smith, 
 to his companion, as they follow over the 
 bridge ; " that means ' big Tiber,' yon know ; 
 but that must be a mistake, I should say. You 
 have no idea how stupid these people are, 
 major ! " 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " responds the major. 
 
 " It does not give one the idea of a very 
 headlong stream in this part of its course, does 
 it?" says Nora Atkins, standing up in the 
 carriage as it crossed the bridge, and holding 
 on by the rail of the box, to get as good a view 
 as she can of the course of the stream. " Who 
 was it, Herr Doppelstaub, that destroyed the 
 old bridge, and made this new one necessary ? " 
 
 " Poth the crate destroyers of Europe de- 
 stroyed it, Miss Nora ; first Dotila, in the sixth 
 century, and then the French, in 1849," says 
 Doppelstaub in reply. " You find the draces 
 of poth of them all over Europe nearly ; but 
 the French have left their mark the teepest ! " 
 
 "It is truly wonderful in travelling over 
 Europe from north to south, and from east to 
 west, how constantly the same statement meets 
 you everywhere — the French burned that 
 castle; the French ruined that church; the 
 French dispersed that museum ; the French
 
 ON THE TIVOLI ROAD. 257 
 
 broke down that bridge ; the French im- 
 poverished that once prosperous town. The 
 evil they have done is ubiquitous," says Alford. 
 
 " And this is the classic stream your favourite 
 Horace sung, Mr. Abbott ! " exclaims Mar- 
 guerite Tomkynnes with beautiful enthusiasm, 
 as their carriage follows the preceding one. 
 " How delightful it is, how truly elevating to 
 the mind and taste, to trace the footsteps of the 
 ... of the classical poets, and visit the scenes 
 that inspired them! To think that a, Koman 
 Emperor should have trodden these stones ! " 
 
 " Well, not exactly these stones," objects the 
 Rev. Athanasius Abbott. " This is a modern 
 bridge ; the ancient one, a little higher up the 
 stream, was destroyed by the French in 1849." 
 
 " Ah, what crowds of recollections throng 
 one's mind ! What a storied soil it is ! Here, 
 then, those new Defenders of the Faith, those 
 modern Crusaders, fought so gloriously for their 
 religion and for the Holy Father ! How great 
 a debt of gratitude do we not owe them ! " con- 
 tinues the gushing Marguerite, with a long 
 etc., etc. 
 
 " Hum ! haw ! ah ! The new bridge — new 
 bridge ! My dear lady, I remember the de- 
 struction of the old bridge as well as if it had 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 been yesterday," says Colonel Hallery, as he 
 and Miss Alderney crossed it in their turn. 
 
 " Ay, indeed ! that was in the sixth century, 
 was it not ? " replies Miss Alderney, as quietly 
 as if he had spoken of something that had 
 happened last week. 
 
 " I believe so, ma'am ; I believe so," returns 
 the colonel, as totally forgetting that he has 
 said he remembered anything as another man 
 would forget the most mechanically uttered 
 expletive. 
 
 " The Anio," says Herr Dopplestaub, leaning 
 back from the box to address the ladies in the 
 carriage, as they drive on, and gradually find 
 themselves in the more open country of the 
 Campagna — " the Anio, mesdames, marked the 
 ancient frontier which divided Latium from 
 the country of the Sabines." 
 
 It may be feared that the ladies did not feel 
 any very lively interest in the boundary-line 
 between Latium and the Sabines. But it was 
 unlucky for Herr Doppelstaub that, just as he 
 spoke, one of those sudden sunbursts that so 
 often, when wrestling with the cloudy skies of 
 early spring, the Eoman sun darts forth, to the 
 sudden mottling of hill and plain and distant 
 townlet with an exquisitely capricious patch-
 
 ON THE TWO LI ROAD. 259 
 
 work of indigo blue shade and golden light, 
 Lathed in an instant all the slopes of the Alban 
 and Sabine Hills. For Marian, who was seated 
 by her mother in the back of the carriage, can- 
 not forbear exclaiming, " Oh ! look, mamma ! 
 Xora, do turn round and look at that line of 
 hills ! Was ever anything so lovely ? " 
 
 And poor Herr Doppelstaub's ancient topo- 
 graphy is altogether lost in the chorus of 
 admiration that ensued. 
 
 " Ah ! " cries Alford, with a sigh, after gazing 
 at the quickly changing lights and shadows 
 in silence, " those are the effects that are the 
 despair of a painter ! Who is to put what you 
 are now looking at on canvas ? " 
 
 " Look at the deep, deep purple on that re- 
 markably isolated conical hill, deepening into 
 absolute black towards the top of it ! " continues 
 Marian : " even as I am speaking, the glory of 
 colour is departing from it, as that dark cloud 
 sails between it and the sun. What a sin- 
 gularly shaped hill ! " 
 
 " That is the mountain of Palestrina, the 
 ancient Prameste, that Horace celebrates with 
 so much love," says Herr Doppelstaub, far too 
 good-natured to resent the shipwreck of his 
 former observation about the Latin and Sabine 
 boundaries.
 
 260 TEE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 A little further on, the learned German does 
 succeed in interesting his fair friends by point- 
 ing out to them a portion of the old Roman 
 road with its original pavement of huge poly- 
 gonal masses of stone fitted one to the other, 
 in the manner which is still used in some of 
 the more unaltered streets of Florence. This 
 bit of pavement (the bit still seen on that part 
 of the ancient road from Rome to Tibur, which 
 the modern road follows) looks as if it were 
 made for eternity ; so utterly impossible does it 
 seem to dislocate or use away even by the traffic 
 of centuries the enormous blocks of which it 
 consists. 
 
 " And is that really and undoubtedly the 
 absolute pavement over which the Emperor 
 Hadrian and Horace and Mecsenas passed when 
 they went from Rome to Tibur ? " asks Nora 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Assuredly it is. Does it look as if it were 
 the work of a more recent day ? But what a 
 strange thing it is that you should be so inte- 
 rested by the sight of a few blocks of stone, 
 without any beauty whatever, fitted together 
 very rudely," observes Alford. 
 
 "Are not you interested by seeing them?" 
 asks Nora.
 
 ON TEE TIVOLI BO AD. 261 
 
 " Unquestionably. Certainly, I am — very 
 interested and gratified. But how strange it 
 is that I should be so ! " rejoins the artist. 
 
 " It never struck me as strange before ; but it 
 is so, when one comes to think of it," admits Nora. 
 
 "It is certain that one does feel a great 
 pleasure in absolutely coming into contact, as 
 one may say, with the great men of an age so 
 utterly gone and vanished, even by a medium 
 of communication so unmeaning, and that tells 
 so little, as a paving-stone," muses Marian. 
 " Which of you gentlemen will undertake to 
 explain for us a phenomenon which is the 
 mainspring of so many of our pleasures at 
 Rome ? " she continues, addressing them both. 
 
 " Surely it is a fery zimple ding, Miss 
 Marian !" answers Doppelstaub promptly : "dere 
 is noting remaining from antiquity dat we may 
 not learn someting from. Dese paving-stones 
 are tocuments — historical tocuments ! " 
 
 "But they are documents only for the 
 learned," returns Marian as promptly. " Why 
 should I, who can piece out no historical facts 
 from them, feel a pleasure in seeing them, 
 directly I am assured that they have been 
 there for two thousand years, and have served 
 as a pavement for men whose names have been
 
 262 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 familiar to me ever since I could read, and who 
 yet have always seemed separated from me by 
 such unbridgable abysses of time ? You have 
 not explained that Herr Doppelstaub ? " 
 
 " And it is a very difficult thing to explain," 
 puts in Alford. " I think," continues he, " that 
 the universally recognized feeling we are 
 speaking of is a singular indication of the 
 close and inextricable binding up together of 
 mind and matter. The most imaginative and 
 least material minds, so to speak, are the most 
 capable of enjoying the pleasure we are speak- 
 ing of. And yet they are assisted in exercising 
 their imagination by any, even the grossest, bit 
 of matter that imagination can lay hold of and 
 use as a stepping-stone across the abysses that 
 Miss Marian speaks of." 
 
 " So that imagination soars the better for a 
 paving-stone attached to its pinion ! " says Mrs. 
 Atkins. 
 
 " Even so. It can no more soar unweighted 
 by matter, than our lungs can breath in an 
 absolute vacuum," retorts Alford. 
 
 " But I don't believe a word about the uni- 
 versality of the pleasure to be got out of seeing 
 old paving-stones. Ask Mr. Eeginald Smith 
 what he thinks of it," says Nora.
 
 ON THE TIVOLI BO AD. 263 
 
 There was a general laugh at Nora's little 
 fling at her bete noire. And the discussion 
 which was threatening, perhaps, to lead them 
 somewhat out of their depths was chased by 
 other objects of interest. 
 
 A little way further to the left of the road 
 Alford pointed out a mass of ruins, which 
 seemed by their extent to be almost like those 
 of a small town. The remains, however, are 
 only those of a medieval castle, once the resi- 
 dence of the lords of the Arcione family. In the 
 early part of the fifteenth century this feudal 
 castle became, as the guide-books tells us, a 
 resort of brigands ; in consequence of which it 
 was reduced to its present condition by the 
 people of Tivoli. 
 
 " It is curious how impossible it is, even for 
 the most unpractised eye, to mistake medieval 
 ruins for Roman," says Alford. " Without any 
 closer examination than we are able to make of 
 them from the carriage as we pass them at this 
 distance, nobody would fail to see that those 
 walls are the work, not of pagan Roman 
 builders, but of medieval Christians." 
 
 " I don't care noting about dose mediefel 
 ruins," says Herr Doppelstaub in a tone of 
 very lofty contempt ; " dey were only par-
 
 264 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 parians who puilt them — mere parparians, 
 ruffian parons." 
 
 "Yes, ruffians enough, and barbarian enough, 
 and very baronial, no doubt," rejoins Alfred ; 
 " but for all that, I confess medieval remains 
 have nearly as much interest for me as 
 classical ones. They were Christians, those 
 ruffian barons." 
 
 " I should not have thought that there was 
 much to be said for them on that score. And I 
 did not know that your orthodoxy was so great 
 as to make that so strong a band of sympathy 
 between you and the ruffian barons," says 
 Marian. 
 
 " Well ; I suppose, that for any direct effect 
 their Christianity had on their mode of living, 
 they might as well have been Hottentots. And 
 I am not concerned to defend my own orthodoxy 
 as the root of any sympathy with them," returns 
 Alford. " But I do feel that the fact of our 
 both belonging to that vast social system, 
 which Christianity has more indirectly, perhaps, 
 than directly created, and which is so entirely 
 different and separated from all else that has 
 ever been in the world, makes them and all 
 that they did and thought, their evil deeds as 
 well as their better qualities, nearer to me and
 
 ON THE TWO LI ROAD. 265 
 
 my mind and my nature than the men of the 
 former civilization can ever be. The fact is, I 
 suppose, Miss Marian, that I am a Gothic-minded 
 man." 
 
 " Ah, mon cher, dat is chust de boint ! Is it 
 not because you are Gothic by race, rather than 
 because you are Christian by greed, that dose 
 parparian parons seem nearer to your sym- 
 pathies ? " says Doppelstaub. 
 
 " Maybe it is. But now, ladies, you may 
 look at something better worthy of your atten- 
 tion than my idiosyncrasies," cries Alford. 
 They were just then topping the rising ground 
 to which the road gradually ascends from the 
 first bridge over the Anio, and from which it 
 descends to the Ponte Lucano, where the same 
 stream is again crossed. " Now look at the line 
 of hills in front of us. Is it not a lovely point of 
 view ! There is Tivoli, clinging on to the slope 
 of its hill, a little to the left ; and, as you see it 
 hence, nestling in olive groves. At the foot 
 of the hill, just at the border of the plain, and 
 a little to the right of us, is the spot to which 
 we are bound. All you can see from here is 
 that the growth of wood thereabouts seems to 
 be richer and more varied than in any other 
 part of the plain. You will see, when we are
 
 266 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 there, that it is so to a degree which constitutes 
 a very large part of the singular and special 
 beauty of the place." 
 
 Nora and Marian, both standing up in the 
 carriage, and linking themselves together to 
 steady themselves, gazed long and in silence 
 at the scene which was spread out before them. 
 
 "It is exquisitely beautiful ! " said Marian, 
 resuming her seat with a sigh, such as is often 
 called forth by the looking at such beauty ; it 
 would be difficult to say why, unless it be from 
 the latent feeling that among so much that is 
 lovely we have no durable abiding place. 
 
 The country immediately around them begins, 
 at the point of the road they have reached, to be 
 of a more arid and less fertile description than 
 that nearer Eome, through which they have 
 been passing. The cause of this is the geo- 
 logical change which here occurs, the latter 
 district being entirely volcanic, whereas they 
 are now entering the region of the travertine — 
 that famous stone of which in all ages the prin- 
 cipal buildings of the Eternal City have been 
 constructed. Presently, all of a sudden, as a 
 whiff of wind blew across the road from the left 
 hand, the three ladies simultaneously carry their 
 handkerchiefs to their noses.
 
 ON THE TIVOLI BO AD. 267 
 
 "Oil! what a dreadful smell," cried Marian 
 in dismay. 
 
 " Is it the malaria ? It is perfectly sicken- 
 ing ! " says Nora. 
 
 " Good gracious ! what can it be ? " inquires 
 Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 " You will have passed it in a minute. It is 
 the mephitic gas, which is evolved by the sul- 
 phur lakes which lie a short distance to the left 
 of the road — not at all unwholesome, though, like 
 many other wholesome things, very unpleasant. 
 There is an establishment of baths close to the 
 lakes," explains Alford. 
 
 "Virgil speaks of the evil-smelling exhala- 
 tion," says Herr Doppelstaub ; " the lakes were 
 in his time buried deep in the recesses of a 
 forest, and there the Tiburtine Sybil — Tibur, 
 you know, was the old name of Tivoli — gave 
 forth her oracles. It was, perhaps, the most 
 venerated oracular shrine in all Italy, and people 
 from far and wide came to consult the Sybil 
 there." 
 
 " I had no idea," says Marian, as the carriage 
 rolls on beyond the range of the effluvium, " that 
 the connection between evil smells and sanctity 
 had been of such ancient date." 
 
 "It is lucky the Miss Tomkynneses and Mr. 
 Abbott cannot overhear you," observes Alford.
 
 268 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 " But, Miss Marian," says Doppelstaub, " if 
 tlie paving-stones just now so delighted you, 
 because they were a material link between you 
 and Horace, why are you insensible to the 
 stimulus to the imagination furnished by smell- 
 ing the same . . . nasty smell, which Horace 
 must have often smelt ? " 
 
 " I dispute the justice of your analogy, Herr 
 Doppelstaub," says Marian. 
 
 " And I take leave to doubt whether Horace 
 was often an inquirer or a worshipper at the 
 shrine," says Alford. 
 
 " There ! that is Roman, and no mistake ! ' 
 cries Nora, as they now come within sight of a 
 grand round tower, in very fine preservation, 
 very much like that of Csecilia Metella on the 
 Appian Way, only somewhat smaller. 
 
 " Yes ! it was the tomb of one M. Plotius 
 Silvanus, and, as you remark, declares itself to 
 be of ancient Roman workmanship as clearly as 
 those ruins of Castel Arcioni declared them- 
 selves to belong to the Middle Ages," says 
 Alford. 
 
 " The bridge, too, is Roman ; or at least, two 
 of the arches are," says Doppelstaub, as the car- 
 riage passes over the Ponte Lucano, which 
 crosses the Anio close to the old Roman tower.
 
 ON THE TIVOLI ROAD. 269 
 
 " The bridge and the tower together would 
 make a charming sketch, if one could manage 
 to get the Hill of Tivoli for a background," cries 
 the artist. 
 
 " Exquisite ! Do make a sketch of it, Mr. 
 Alford," cries Marian. 
 
 " Should you like to have one ? " asks Alford, 
 looking into her face. 
 
 " I should prize such a memorial of our day 
 very much," returns Marian, with a bright 
 blush ; " but it is out of the question for you to 
 think of making one to-day." 
 
 " Possible and not possible are very elastic 
 terms after all. Nous verrons I " says Alford. 
 
 And very shortly after that the carriage turns 
 down a lane, which strikes off from the road to 
 the right, and in a few minutes more draws up 
 at a lofty iron gate, the entrance to the grounds 
 of the Yilla Adriana, which is now the property 
 of the Italian Government. 
 
 Here the party find themselves reassembled 
 in the course of a few minutes, amid the boasts 
 of Anderson and Reginald Smith as to the 
 number of minutes by which they had preceded 
 the rest.
 
 2 TO THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE VILLA ADRIANA. 
 
 The merrily chattering party are assembled at 
 the iron gates which give admittance into the 
 grounds occupied by the ruins of the celebrated 
 Imperial Villa, now the property of the Italian 
 Government, having been recently purchased 
 for the nation from the Braschi family. The 
 carriages were admitted within the gates, and 
 would have been permitted to stand near the 
 house of the porter on the inside, had it been 
 the intention of the party to take a rapid glance 
 at the Villa, and then proceed to Tivoli, as is the 
 usual practice. As our party proposed, on the 
 contrary, to spend the entire day in the grounds 
 of the Villa, it was necessary to send the car- 
 riages up the hill to Tivoli. This having been 
 done, and the usual amount of manoeuvring to
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 271 
 
 secure desired, and avoid undesired, companion- 
 ships having taken place, successfully for the 
 most part in those cases in which the respective 
 parties agreed in their wishes, the entire party 
 proceeded to walk towards the principal por- 
 tions of the ruins between two rows of ancient 
 cypresses, which form a magnificent avenue. 
 
 "If I had been Hadrian," said Eeginald Smith, 
 " I would have chosen some less mournful sort 
 of tree for my avenue." 
 
 The laugh at Mr. Smith's expense that fol- 
 lowed this, gave rise to a discussion on the pro- 
 bable age of the trees in question ; and the hedge 
 of cypresses at S. Dominico on the Hill of Fie- 
 sole, which is known to have existed in the time 
 of Boccaccio, was referred to by Colonel Hallery, 
 who did not however, as might have been ex- 
 pected, declare that he remembered the planting 
 of it. The cypresses at the Villa Adrian have 
 not by any means, however, the appearance of 
 being of so great an age as those on the road 
 between Florence and Fiesole. 
 
 Advancing up the slight ascent that leads 
 from the gate to the principal ruins, the party 
 came first to a huge extent of very lofty and 
 unbroken wall, which once formed the back of 
 a long arcaded walk, and still encloses on one
 
 272 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 side the vast level parallelogram, which is held 
 to have been a parade ground, or Campus Mar- 
 tius. Here a cry of dismay and disappointment 
 escaped from Julian Alford, the artist. For he 
 had not been there since the ivy which used to 
 cover the whole vast extent of the wall referred 
 to, had been removed. When the celebrated 
 Villa became the property of the nation, the 
 management of it fell, together with that of all 
 the Eoman remains in the Eternal City, into the 
 hands of the Cavaliere Eosa. And it is by his 
 order that this wall, as well as almost the whole 
 of the other portions of the ruins of the Imperial 
 Villa, has been denuded of the beautifying gar- 
 ment with which Nature had supplied them. 
 And great has been the outcry, and unceasing 
 the discussion in Eome, which the measure has 
 occasioned. Of course the contending parties — 
 those who approve on the one hand, and those 
 who condemn on the other — are represented by 
 the archaeologists on the one side and the artists 
 on the other. The latter, as might be expected, 
 carry the greater body of the general public 
 with them, and the measure of indignation 
 poured out on the devoted head of the learned 
 and too zealous antiquary has been immense. 
 Herr Doppelstaub was all in favour of the
 
 THE VILLA ADRIANA. 273 
 
 merciless destruction of the beautiful ivy — such 
 a mass of it as is not often seen. 
 
 " Ma tear vellow," urged he, in reply to 
 Alford's lamentations, " ve most dink a little 
 of bosderity ! De virst ding of all is to breserf 
 de ruins." 
 
 " But there is much reason to think that this 
 ruthless stripping does not tend to preserve 
 them," replied Alford. " If you could have 
 prevented the ivy from ever growing, you 
 might have insured a longer existence to the 
 old walls, though I am not sure even of that. 
 But to tear down the growth of centuries, 
 dragging out by the roots the fibres which 
 have interpenetrated the stones in every direc- 
 tion, must surely be anything but a measure 
 of conservation. And think of the beauty that 
 has been destroyed ! " 
 
 " Peauty is a fery goot ding, ma tear vellow," 
 rejoined the German ; " put zience is a petter. 
 Dese vails is tocuments — 'istorical tocu- 
 ments ..." 
 
 " Like the paving-stones, just now ! " put in 
 Alford. 
 
 " Chust so ! " returned Doppelstaub, in no 
 wise disconcerted ; " chust so ! 'istorical tocu- 
 ments ! and the most necessary ding to do with 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 tocuments is to make them legible. How could 
 we read de tocuments if dey vas all smothered 
 up with ivy ? " 
 
 " I maintain it to be sheer vandalism ! " said 
 Alford : " and I am quite sure that I shall have 
 the vast majority of all who ever come here on 
 my side. And I do assure you," he added, 
 turning to the others of the party, " that all the 
 talk about reading the documents is, in this case, 
 mere nonsense. All the reading of them by all 
 the archaeologists has had no other result than 
 endless disputes, and an amount of hatred, 
 malice, and all uncharitableness, which it is 
 frightful to contemplate. You will see an 
 enormous quantity of ruins, to each of which 
 different names, and purposes, and characters 
 have been assigned by different learned anti- 
 quarians. One guide-book follows one authority 
 and another follows a different authority. And 
 no human being can say which is right, or can 
 ever know anything about it." 
 
 " That is a comfort any way ! " said Eeginald 
 Smith. 
 
 " No doubt there are people to whom ignor- 
 ance is very comfortable ! " said the Eev. Atha- 
 nasius Abbott, casting a glance of withering 
 sarcasm at the poor little Cockney.
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 275 
 
 " Surely such a scene as this has something 
 to tell us of the lives of those who raised these 
 walls," said Walter Weston modestly. 
 
 " Unquestionably it has — an immense deal ! " 
 rejoined Alford. " But the story these walls 
 have to tell must be made legible by the 
 light of a lively and sympathetic imagination, 
 and not by the vandalism of despoiling them of 
 the beauty with which Nature had clothed them. 
 It is desirable to be able to assign a ruin to the 
 period to which it really belongs, and this, in 
 many cases, can be done only by examining the 
 structure of the masonry or brickwork. But in 
 this case there is no doubt at all as to the 
 builder of these walls, or as to the period when 
 they were raised. We all know that they were 
 built by the Emperor Hadrian towards the close 
 of his life, in the first quarter of the second 
 century." 
 
 " So that nearly eighteen hundred years have 
 passed since human hands were working here to 
 place these stones one on another. To think of 
 all that has come and gone in that time ! " said 
 young Anderson, turning to pretty Marguerite 
 Tomkynnes. 
 
 " Those were exactly the thoughts that were 
 passing through my mind at that moment ! " 
 replied the sympathetic young lady.
 
 276 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 Young ladies are so prompt to sympathise 
 with the thoughts of young gentlemen who 
 drive their own handsome equipages ! It is a 
 law of nature. 
 
 " You don't mean to say, Weston, that you 
 approve of the stripping of the ruins in the 
 interest of archaeological science ? " said Alford, 
 returning to his grievance. 
 
 " No, indeed ! They were so beautiful as I 
 remember the place when I first saw it. And 
 to me the old walls seemed to speak more elo- 
 quently, clothed, as they were, by kind Nature's 
 reverential hand, than they do now in their 
 nakedness ! " returned Weston. 
 
 " Of course they do to any one who has a 
 grain of poetry in his composition. I thought 
 such a lover of the beautiful as you are could 
 not be in favour of the destruction that has been 
 done here. But we won't be drilled and driven 
 into being archaeologists willy-nilly, will we, 
 mesdames ? " continued he, turning to the ladies 
 of the party. " Trust me, this is one of the cases 
 in which ignorance is bliss, and where it is folly 
 to be wise, with the wisdom which the archae- 
 ologist would thrust upon us. What we have 
 to do is to revel in the wonderful beauty of the 
 spot, as it exists, despite all the uglifying efforts
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 277 
 
 of the Cavaliere Rosa ; and fill our eyes and 
 minds with the poetry of the place, and feed 
 our imaginations with the traces and evidences 
 of the old pagan luxury and civilization, without 
 troubling our brains with insoluble questions as to 
 the purpose of this or that portion of the ruins ! " 
 
 " Bravo, Alford ! I am all for not troubling 
 our brains ! " ejaculated little Courtney Smith. 
 
 " What does it signify," continued the young 
 painter, without noticing this interruption, 
 " whether these remains are those of a temple 
 or of a theatre ? We know that more than 
 one of each of these classes of buildings was 
 comprised within the limits of the Imperial 
 Yilla ; and that knowledge contributes much 
 towards enabling us to form an idea of the 
 wealth, power, and profusion of the planner 
 of these enormous preparations for the pleasure 
 of one man. But what matters it which was 
 the temple, and which the theatre ? If we could 
 learn what was the purpose of every portion of 
 the ruins, and what their exact relative position 
 with regard to each other, it might do some- 
 thing toward enabling us to form a correct 
 conception of the daily life of those who lived 
 here. But such knowledge is beyond all hope. 
 And the attempt to attain it only leads to sterile
 
 278 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 and interminable disputes among the different 
 would-be authorities." 
 
 " Just think what a walk this must have 
 been under the arcades that, as one can still 
 see, must have run along the entire length of 
 this wall ! " said Marian Atkins, as most of the 
 party proceeded to pace along the Imperial 
 promenade, the lofty wall of which still offered 
 shade, though arches and pillars have all 
 vanished. " Can any one conceive anything 
 more delicious than pacing such a colonnade, 
 with such a prospect before one's eyes as this 
 one offers ? " continued she. 
 
 The landscape, which is to the right hand of 
 one walking under the shadow of this mighty 
 wall in the direction which points towards the 
 Campagna and Rome, is in truth one of rare 
 beauty. . The hill of Tivoli, with its slope 
 clothed with oak, and its summit crowned with 
 olives of a magnificent growth, rises in front 
 of the spectator. Fragments of villas, once the 
 delicice of the wealthiest and most luxurious 
 among the masters of the world, may be descried 
 among the trees. Along the crest of that por- 
 tion of the hill which stretches farthest into the 
 plain of the Campagna run the buildings of the 
 town, which, whatever they may be when you
 
 THE VILLA ADR IAN A. 279 
 
 are among them, are eminently picturesque as 
 a feature in the landscape. And a little further 
 still than where the hill of Tivoli rises from the 
 flat of the Campagna, the small conical emi- 
 nences of S. Angelo and Quintiliolo, rising 
 each of them in a singularly isolated manner 
 from the plain, and each crowned with buildings 
 on its apex, diversify the prospect. But for the 
 production of such beauty as he looks on who 
 sees all this from the colonnaded walk, along 
 which the party of our friends are pacing, the 
 whole of the elements of the scene must be 
 bathed in the all-glorifying Roman light. 
 Those who have never experienced the fact 
 cannot be expected to believe to its full extent 
 in the beautifying quality of the Roman atmo- 
 sphere. 
 
 " Hadrian, master of the Roman world, and 
 absolute lord of all that it could contribute to 
 pleasure and enjoyment ! I wonder if he was 
 very happy here ? " mused Marian, as they con- 
 tinued to saunter along the terrace, in the 
 shadow of the huge length of the wall. 
 
 " No, not a bit of it ! " said young Anderson, 
 who was walking by her side. " Depend upon 
 it, he never spent so happy a day here in all 
 his life as you will, I hope, spend to-day. No ;
 
 280 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 the emperor who created this immense villa for 
 his own personal gratification was anything but 
 a happy man ; at least, during the few years 
 that he passed here." 
 
 " Is that known to have been so ? " asked 
 Colonel Hallery, who was following the before- 
 mentioned couple down the walk by the side of 
 Miss Alderney, while Major Danby walked on 
 the other side of her. 
 
 "It is, at all events, one of those statements 
 which I find it extremely easy to believe," said 
 Miss Alderney. 
 
 " We know quite enough to be perfectly sure 
 that such must have been the case," returned 
 Anderson. "He built this villa towards the 
 close of his life, after seventeen years of almost 
 constant journey ings through every part of his 
 huge and overgrown empire. And while living 
 here he was guilty of acts of cruelty and tyranny 
 as odious as those which had signalized his first 
 accession to the purple. Ceaseless fears and 
 suspicions impelled him to order the death of 
 many senators and other leading men of Rome. 
 And he would have consigned to destruction 
 many more had not his ferocious orders been 
 disobeyed by better men, to whom the exe- 
 cution was entrusted. When he had sur-
 
 THE VILLA ADBIANA. 281 
 
 rounded himself here with all that he had 
 seen in his travels most conducive to human 
 happiness, as he imagined, he plunged into 
 excesses of debauchery, that very soon brought 
 their due Nemesis with them. He fell into a 
 miserable state of health, and after a short 
 period of the utter misery of realizing the truth 
 that all his power was unavailing to enable him 
 to enjoy the preparations for happiness which 
 nothing short of Imperial power could have 
 sufficed to heap together, and that all was dust 
 and Dead Sea apples in his mouth, he went to 
 Baice, by the order of Iris physicians, and died 
 there. No ; Hadrian's Yilla never gave him as 
 much enjoyment as it will give us to-day ! " 
 
 " Why, Anderson, Oxford has made you a 
 Doctor of Divinity already, I think ! You have 
 quite a talent for pulpit eloquence ! " laughed 
 Alford. 
 
 " Mr. Anderson's statement is accurately in 
 accordance with authentic history," said the 
 Rev. Athanasius Abbott, who was walking 
 with Miss Lucie Tomkynnes ; " but he might 
 have added a circumstance which of itself is 
 sufficient to account for and explain the blight 
 that fell upon him. He was a noted persecutor 
 of the Church."
 
 282 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 " I should almost have expected that such an 
 unreasonably enormous preparation for enjoy- 
 ment would turn out to be a failure," said 
 Marian Atkins musingly. " Happiness, I think, 
 has to come to one. It is generally no use to 
 travel huge distances out of one's way to go in 
 search of it." 
 
 " Anderson may have preached a very good 
 sermon, as Alford accuses him of doing," said 
 Walter Weston ; " but, for my part, I do think 
 that such a sermon on the old text, vanitas vani- 
 tatum, as these huge ruins of a place dedicated 
 to pleasure, was never preached before or else- 
 where ! " 
 
 "I think you seem to have got into a very 
 solemn strain of talk, young people. But, 
 talking of the vanity of human wishes, did 
 anybody think of ordering the hampers with 
 the provend — as Ford is so fond of calling it 
 in his Spanish guide-book — to be brought up 
 from the place where we dismissed the car- 
 riages ? " said genial, cheery Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 " I did, ma'am ; for i though on preaching I 
 am bent,' as Johnny Grilpin said, with a differ- 
 ence, ' I have a hungry mind.' I told my man 
 to help yours and Mrs. Tomkynnes' servants to 
 carry them up to the fattores house," replied 
 Anderson.
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 283 
 
 " Bravo ! I appoint yon on the spot our 
 master of the revels," returned the lady. 
 
 " I never inarch so willingly as when I have 
 
 jDerfect confidence in the Commissary-General. 
 
 And it seems to me that Mr. Anderson shows 
 
 considerable talent in that line," said Major 
 
 'Danby. 
 
 " But I vote we do not lunch at the fattores 
 house. We can find some pleasanter spot than 
 that," said Mrs. Atkins. 
 
 " I have a place in my eye ! I will show you 
 the most delicious spot for the purpose that can 
 possibly be conceived. I will tell the servants 
 where to make their preparations. The fattores 
 house is all on the road to the place I mean," 
 said Alford ; " but now let us go on as far as 
 the end of this terrace, for the sake of the out- 
 look from the further end of it." 
 
 They had been slowly sauntering in the shade 
 at the foot of the wall, from which the arches 
 had once sprung that had converted the terrace 
 into a covered arcade, and were now nearly at 
 the end of it. Thence, looking across the little 
 valley hollowed out by the streamlet of the 
 Alpheus, the view ranges over the Campagna 
 towards Eome, the haze above which marks its 
 exact locality. When the light is favourable,
 
 284 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 or at a little before sunset, the cupola of St. 
 Peter's may be distinguished ; though it is seen 
 better from somewhat higher ground hard by. 
 There were light clouds in the sky, which a 
 gentle breeze was slowly driving across it in 
 such sort as to mottle the whole extent of the 
 Oampagna with lights and shadows, that 
 changed places every minute and chased each 
 other up and down the undulations of the sur- 
 face, alternately bringing in view and con- 
 cealing ruined castles, solitary tombs, huge lines 
 of ancient aqueducts and modern villas. A 
 view more lovely, and lovely with a loveliness 
 specially and uniquely its own, utterly unlike 
 anything in all the world beside, could not be 
 imagined. They all stood gazing for a while 
 under the spell of that strange sadness and 
 melancholy with which it is the special and 
 singular characteristic of the Roman Campagna 
 to tinge the mind. Every one feels that it is 
 beautiful ; and, though the beauty is of a very 
 subtle character, the causes and component parts 
 of it may readily be analysed and understood. 
 But the peculiar and ineffable sadness of the 
 Campagna, of which almost every one is equally 
 sensible, is far more difficult to be accounted 
 for. It is to a great degree uninhabited and
 
 THE VILLA ABEIANA. 285 
 
 unproductive. But so to a yet greater degree 
 are parts of the English southdowns. Yet far 
 from sadness being a characteristic of the latter, 
 a more cheerful and spirit-bracing exercise than 
 a walk over their short green turf cannot be 
 found ! Is the cause to be found in the his- 
 torical associations with which every inch of 
 that blighted soil is rife ? There is, indeed, in 
 those reminiscences wherewithal to sadden the 
 most cheerful spirit ; but the influence I am 
 speaking of is felt by many whose ignorance of 
 all such lore would, one might have thought, 
 have protected them from any such malady of 
 the mind. Perhaps the main cause of the un- 
 mistakable effect in question may be the evi- 
 dence, which is offered by everything of which 
 the eye can take cognizance, of human failure ; 
 of the ineffectiveness of human effort ; of the 
 irresistible overruling of events, which has 
 brought so much of the results of the activity 
 of some of earth's greatest and most powerful 
 to this I — to desolation and palpable decay — to 
 rendering the earth unfitted for the habitation 
 of man, instead of subduing it to his use and 
 well-being ! 
 
 The whole party remained for some minutes 
 silently gazing at the scene before them : and
 
 286 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 then turning, retraced their steps along the 
 terraced walk at the foot of the wall nearly as 
 far as the point at which they had first reached 
 it : nearly, but not quite so far ; for at a point 
 in the wall a little nearer to the far end from 
 which they were returning there is a magnifi- 
 cent archway, one of the finest remaining entire 
 in the whole ruins. On the other side of the 
 wall there is a vast oblong open space evidently 
 levelled carefully by the hand of man. This is 
 generally called the Campus Martius, or parade- 
 ground ; and certain remains of numerous small 
 chambers around it, which probably were the 
 soldiers' lodgings, seem to indicate the proba- 
 bility that such was the destination of the space 
 in question. It is not large enough for man- 
 oeuvres on a large scale, such as the Campus 
 Martius, belonging to a large city, is intended 
 for ; but abundantly spacious enough for the 
 parade-ground and display of such palace 
 troops as may be supposed to have been per- 
 manently quartered in the Imperial Villa. And 
 the archway which has been spoken of was 
 probably the main entrance to this parade- 
 ground. The party passed under it, and found 
 themselves at once in the unmitigated blaze of 
 the sunshine.
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 287 
 
 " Oil, what a change ! " cried Miss Alderney, 
 while the other ladies put up their parasols in 
 all haste ; "it is like passing from the tempe- 
 rate to the torrid zone ! " 
 
 " I declare I am afraid to encounter the glare 
 and heat of crossing this unsheltered space! 
 Had we not better keep in the shadow of the 
 ruins ? " said Mrs. Tomkynnes. 
 
 " We shall find shadow on the other side. 
 We shall cross in less than five minutes. And 
 I particularly want to show you the view seen 
 through this arch from the other side of the 
 Campus Martius, as the learned have decided 
 to call this," said Alford. 
 
 So they all " screwed their courage to the 
 sticking place," and, stepping out into the 
 blazing sunshine, stopped neither to talk nor 
 to look till they had reached the shade of the 
 ruined wall on the other side ; not such a wall 
 as that remaining on the opposite side of the 
 Campus Martius, but fragments of buildings 
 more than sufficiently high to make the shade 
 they so much desired. 
 
 " A little more this way," said Alford, who 
 evidently knew the exact spot to which he 
 wished to lead them ; "a little more to the 
 right ! Now turn round and look at the view
 
 288 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 through the archway we left on the other 
 side." 
 
 What met their eyes was indeed well worth 
 the trouble they had taken to reach it. In the 
 immediate foreground was the open space of 
 the Campus Martius, golden brown with short 
 coarse grass burnt to amber-colour by the sun, 
 and gilded by his light till it looked as if it 
 were burnished. On the fragment of a column 
 lying by itself out in the midst — how or when 
 transported thither who can guess ! — sate a 
 shepherd, the only human being save them- 
 selves in sight. None but those who know 
 the Eoman Campagna and its surrounding hills 
 can tell what singularly and suggestively pic- 
 turesque figures those Eoman shepherds are. 
 Clad in a sheepskin jacket, prepared with the 
 wool on the outside, and worn indifferently in 
 the hottest and coldest weather — good, as its 
 wearer would not unphilosophically tell you, to 
 keep the warmth in during the winter and out 
 during the summer solstice — in short leather 
 breeches, sheepskin sandals bound and bandaged 
 round the legs in a fashion which doubtless has 
 not changed in these regions for two thousand 
 years and more, and in a high, peaked felt hat 
 decked with a coloured ribbon, and holding in
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 289 
 
 his hand the long staff — generally a mere rod 
 rather than a crook — wherewith he rules his 
 flock, and leads, not drives, them to the pasture, 
 it is impossible to conceive a figure more tempt- 
 ing to an artist's pencil. A few sheep were 
 lazily grazing on the coarse brown grass ; and 
 their companion, guide, and friend sat there 
 as tolerant of the scorching rays of the sun, as 
 peacefully tranquil, and to all appearance as 
 vacuous of any mental processes, as they. 
 
 " He is worth his weight in gold, as he sits 
 there on that marble fragment in the fore- 
 ground, and imparts to the scene that same 
 impression of unchanging, time-defying repose 
 which is so wonderfully given to the Egyp- 
 tian landscape by those eternal-looking sitting 
 figures of gods and goddesses in granite and 
 basalt. I must have him," said Alford, pulling 
 out his pocket sketch-book, and hurriedly 
 sharpening a pencil ; " you others, fill your 
 eyes and minds and memories the while, with 
 all the features of the scene before you." 
 
 It was good advice. The level space of the 
 Campus Martius, on which they were standing, 
 being considerably raised above the level of the 
 neighbouring portions of the Campagna, the 
 old shepherd and his sheep were seen against 
 
 vol. i. u
 
 200 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 the soft blue sky of the low horizon. Then to 
 the right of them came the end of the long wall, 
 where, on the other side of it, our friends had 
 stood and looked over the Campagna. Then, 
 carrying the eye along the wall, came the arch- 
 way under which they had passed ; and, as they 
 looked through it at that distance, the most 
 lovely little bit of landscape set in the frame 
 furnished by it, that eyes ever rested on. The 
 two isolated pinnacles of S. Angelo and Quin- 
 tiliolo, seen against the pure blue of the sky, 
 with the buildings on them dazzlingly white in 
 the sunshine ; the well-contrasted olive-covered 
 hill, crowned by the astonishingly massive 
 ruins of the Villa of Quintilius Yarus, where 
 Horace was often a guest ; then the westernmost 
 part of the crescent-shaped town of Tivoli, and 
 the magnificent cypresses of the Villa d'Este, 
 make as perfect a little gem of a landscape as 
 the most poetically minded painter could devise, 
 if he had the ordering of it at his pleasure. 
 Still further to the right, beyond the archway 
 in that direction the view is completed by other 
 masses of the ruins, making that unending 
 variety of lines and forms which only the ruins 
 of extensive buildings ever offer. The colouring, 
 too, is all that can be desired. For the varied
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 291 
 
 greys and mellowed reds of stone or brick are 
 mingled with and relieved by a vast variety of 
 verdure. 
 
 Having, as Alford bade them, filled their 
 minds and memories with the beauty spread 
 out before them — or at least such of them as 
 were capable of such a task having done so, 
 — the party proceeded to wander among the 
 labyrinth of ruined halls, and arches, and 
 corridors, and stairs, with ever-increasing 
 astonishment at the immensity of the quantity 
 of building which still remains to show what 
 this wondrous Yilla must once have been ; — 
 Herr Doppelstaub insisting, as they rambled 
 on from one mass of ruin to another, in pointing 
 out that this was a theatre, and that a library, 
 and the other a temple, and those again the 
 special apartments of the emperor ; whilst 
 Alford was equally anxious to make them 
 observe and enjoy each most exquisite point 
 of view and happiest combination of objects 
 and effects. 
 
 I do not know whether the observation of 
 others may go to support the notion, but it has 
 often seemed to me that landscape painters love 
 their art with a greater enthusiasm of absolute 
 and unadulterated love for the beautiful than
 
 292 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 any other class of artists. Is it that the abso- 
 lute perfection of beauty is produced by no 
 hand save Nature's own ? Any way, rny friend 
 Alford is an instance in favour of my theory ; 
 for never was a man who loved his art with 
 a more absorbing love. 
 
 This rambling among the ruins is most en- 
 joyable ; and that it is so is due to the Cavaliere 
 Rosa. If his management of the place has 
 raised a storm of disapprobation in respect of 
 the destruction of the ivy and other creepers, 
 which added so much to the beauty of the ruins, 
 there can be but one opinion as to the great- 
 ness of the boon conferred on the public by the 
 gardenlike laying-out of the ground on which 
 the ruins stand. What has been done in this 
 respect not only adds much to the beauty of 
 them, but renders the visiting of them agreeable 
 to all, and possible to some. For to ladies it 
 would have been impossible, or nearly so, to 
 make their way among the impediments caused 
 by such a growth of brambles and underwood 
 as this climate produces in a very short space 
 of time. As it is, judiciously cut and well-kept 
 walks conduct the visitor to every portion of 
 the ruins ; — to every portion, that is to say, in 
 that part of the immense enclosure — ten miles
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 2d 6 
 
 in circumference, we are told — which has as yet 
 been subjected to this treatment. This is far 
 from extending to the whole of the space 
 known to have been occupied by the Villa. 
 But the buildings, which may be found by those 
 who will take the trouble of wandering over the 
 other parts of the domain, are much inferior in 
 number, in importance, and in beauty, to those 
 which have been rendered easily accessible. In 
 another respect, also, the management of Signor 
 Rosa has been eminently judicious. The won- 
 derfully varied growth of trees and shrubs has 
 been carefully preserved and tended. And it 
 would be difficult to exaggerate the value of 
 these in enhancing the beauty of the ruins. 
 Nature, unerring as usual, has combined her 
 varied greens in these shubberies with the 
 happiest and most delightful effect. From the 
 tender green of the young shoots of the ar- 
 butus to the deep rich velvet of the stone 
 pine, and the dark shades of the cypress, the 
 variety is infinite, and the beauty produced as 
 unending. 
 
 After rambling about among these walks for 
 some couple of hours our party of friends began 
 to feel themselves reminded that the usual hour 
 of their luncheon was somewhat passed, and to
 
 294 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 be conscious that an entire morning spent first 
 in a drive across the Campagna, and then in 
 walking and lounging in the open air, was more 
 conducive to appetite than the lapse of the same 
 number of hours passed in a drawing-room. 
 And somewhat pressing inquiries were ad- 
 dressed to Afford, who had instinctively on 
 his own part, and by tacit common consent on 
 the part of his friends, assumed the office of 
 commander-in-chief, as to whether their wander- 
 ings had brought them at all near to the spot 
 which he had destined as their al fresco dining- 
 parlour. 
 
 " You will be there in ten minutes," said he ; 
 " I have kept count of the time ; and I guessed 
 you would be about ready to look into the con- 
 tents of those huge hampers. We have only 
 the length of the Yale of Tempe to traverse ; 
 and if the servants have been as punctual as I 
 have, you will find all ready for you." 
 
 " Yale of Tempe ! " cried Anderson, who was 
 walking with Nora Atkins on his arm, having 
 monopolized that young lady all the morning 
 to the exceeding disgust of Eeginald Smith, 
 who had been obliged to content himself with 
 the companionship of Miss Lucie Tomkynnes, 
 not much more to the contentment of that fair
 
 THE VILLA ADBIANA. 295 
 
 damsel. " Yale of Tempe ! Why I thought 
 that was in Thessaly." 
 
 " Right enough in your geography, old 
 fellow. But our emperor, the world-travelled 
 Hadrian, had a fancy for reproducing here all 
 that most excited his admiration in the course 
 of his travels. He had been extremely pleased 
 with the far-famed Yale of Tempe. Therefore 
 a Yale of Tempe must needs be produced at the 
 foot of the hill of Tivoli. There it is — that 
 rather deep depression of the soil, with a little 
 rill at the bottom of it, to the right of our path. 
 It does not look as if it were likely to be much 
 ' zephyris agitata,' does it ? What is more to 
 our present purpose, however, is that our 
 lunch awaits us at the further end of it." 
 
 The path they were following — one of the 
 most charming in the grounds of the Villa — 
 runs along the margin of the little ravine, which 
 is said, with good appearance of probability, to 
 have been what Hadrian chose to call the Yale 
 of Tempe, till it reaches a spot at the extremity 
 nearest to the foot of the ascent to Tivoli. There 
 the path, as at present made, terminates in a 
 sort of rather elevated platform, formed by the 
 flat roof of some substructures, consisting of a 
 number of small chambers, the former use of
 
 296 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 which has not, as far as I am aware, been made 
 the subject of conjecture by any of the anti- 
 quarians. There is nothing of special interest 
 about them, save that the little terrace formed 
 by the flat roof, which was once probably the 
 floor of other superimposed rooms, is one of 
 the most beautiful spots to be. found among the 
 ruins. Immediately in front — on the Tivoli 
 side, that is to say — there is a specially rich 
 assemblage of evergreen trees and shrubs, the 
 fine stone-pines, among which are some high 
 enough to throw the little terrace into shadow, 
 while both they and the luxuriant bay-trees 
 among which they stand, fill the whole air with 
 a delicious fragrance. This was the spot des- 
 tined by Alford for the picnic festival. And 
 there the servants of Mrs. Tomkynnes, Mrs. 
 Atkins, and Mr. Anderson had, with all the 
 understanding of such matters that belongs to 
 an experienced Roman servant accustomed to 
 live in foreign families, spread the feast. 
 
 There was a general shout of delight at the 
 beauty of the spot the commander-in-chief had 
 selected, and a unanimous declaration that they 
 were so much obliged to him for his happy 
 thought of a picnic at the Yilla. Mrs. Atkins 
 was the first to seat herself, saying, as she 
 did so —
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 297 
 
 " I shall place myself here, where I have 
 before my eyes that superb hill, on which — 
 what did you say his name was ? — the friend of 
 Horace — Quintilius Varus built his villa. To 
 my thinking he chose a finer situation than 
 Hadrian did." 
 
 " Perhaps his Imperial Majesty did not find 
 the sight of Eome in the distance, as Varus had 
 it from the hill yonder, with all its reminders, 
 so agreeable an object ! " said Anderson. 
 
 " Perhaps he liked it no better than another 
 royal builder of a palace liked the prospect of 
 St. Denis ! " rejoined Walter Weston. 
 
 " There is a capital seat here, Miss Alder- 
 ney," said Colonel Hallery, " and if you and 
 Mrs. Atkins will permit me to have the pleasure 
 of placing myself between you, I shall have a 
 prospect before me, which I will venture to say 
 neither the emperor nor the king would have 
 objected to," added the colonel, pointing to a 
 huge raised pie that graced — not the board, but 
 — the table-cloth spread on the fiat tiles of the 
 terrace. 
 
 " I think we can find seats here, my dear 
 madam," said Major Danby, addressing Mrs. 
 Tomkynnes, as he placed her and himself oppo- 
 site to Mrs. Atkins, " and if you agree with me
 
 298 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 in thinking Hallery's notions of the sort of 
 prospect most desirable on the present occasion 
 correct, we shall not be badly off." 
 
 The young people arranged themselves to the 
 j)erfect satisfaction of all parties, save in the one 
 instance of Lucie Tomkynnes and Keginald 
 Smith, who would both have preferred a differ- 
 ent arrangement. But in such matters, and in 
 so numerous a party, the perfect contentment of 
 all save two will be considered, by those who 
 have much experience of these things, a signal 
 success. The morning's ramble had apparently 
 sufficed to produce a very comfortable degree of 
 intimacy between Anderson and Nora Atkins. 
 Alford, sitting next to Marian, had nothing 
 further to ask the gods. Mr. Abbott and Mar- 
 guerite Tomkynnes were, as every one knew, a 
 well-assorted pair. Herr Doppelstaub was in- 
 vited by Mrs. Tomkynnes, who considered him 
 to be a sort of lion that might be invited to her 
 parties with advantage, to place himself on that 
 side of her which was not supported by the 
 gallant major ; and Walter Weston slipped into 
 a seat by Mrs. Atkins, who had the colonel on 
 her other side. 
 
 " How is it," said that lady, looking round, 
 " that we have more gentlemen than ladies ? I
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 299 
 
 thought we had been in even numbers. Oh, it 
 is because Miss Marie Tomkynnes has not joined 
 us. We had counted on you for four ladies, 
 Mrs. Tomkynnes." 
 
 " Such a disappointment for my poor Marie ! 
 But her time is so occupied. The dear princess 
 was expecting to receive the French cardinal 
 this morning, and she very much wished that 
 Marie should be with her. It was impossible to 
 disappoint her." 
 
 The apology was very graciously received, 
 eliciting no comment save that of a laughing 
 glance of mutual intelligence which passed be- 
 tween Marian Atkins and Alford — a prompt 
 dismissal of the subject which probably some- 
 what disappointed Mrs. Lespinasse Tomkynnes, 
 who would have preferred that her daughter's 
 avocations should have been made the subject of 
 some further discussion. 
 
 And then came that clatter of knives and 
 forks, and plates and glasses, and laughter and 
 talk across the table — table-cloth, that is to say 
 — which on such occasions makes so acceptable 
 a cover for the lower tones of those of the party 
 who prefer addressing themselves to one pair of 
 ears only. Herr Doppelstaub came out in great 
 force with learned explanations of the different
 
 300 THE ATKINSES AT ROME. 
 
 destinations and purposes of the variety of build- 
 ings they had been gazing at ; and Mr. Abbott 
 showed that he was by no means unfurnished 
 with information and reading on the subject. 
 So that, as a natural and necessary result, those 
 two gentlemen had, by the time the repast was 
 over, each of them reached the comfortable con- 
 clusion that the other, however good a fellow he 
 might be in a general way, was the greatest ass 
 and most ignorant blockhead that ever talked 
 on a subject he did not understand. Colonel 
 Hallery told stories of the picnics he had shared 
 in those grounds before many of those present 
 were born, or thought of. Major Danby's jovial 
 voice was frequently heard contributing to the 
 jocund chorus, though if any one of the party 
 had been asked afterwards what he had said, no 
 one of them would have been able to report any 
 other articulate words than, " Ton my soul, 
 madam ! " and " By George, sir ! " As for what 
 passed between those of the little party who 
 spoke rather to their immediate neighbours than 
 pro bono publico, it would be an unpardonable 
 indiscretion to reveal any word of it. It was 
 abundantly evident that they were all highly 
 enjoying themselves ; and when the last glass 
 of champagne was emptied " to their next merry
 
 THE VILLA ADRIAN A. 301 
 
 meeting," it was agreed on all hands that a 
 more successful picnic had never been known. 
 
 When a cup of coffee, for which the girls had 
 boiled the water over a gipsy fire, had been 
 enjoyed, and the men had finished their cigars, 
 the sun was already low in the heavens. The 
 carriages had been ordered to come down from 
 Tivoli for them at sun-down ; but Alford de- 
 clared that there was one more sight which 
 they must enjoy before starting on their way 
 homewards — the sunset seen from the top of the 
 high bank that shuts in the long narrow space 
 which is considered, and in all probability cor- 
 rectly, to have been the hippodrome, or race 
 course. Some of the elders shook their heads — 
 not very decisively ; — but the unanimous voices 
 of the younger members of the party, which 
 pronounced in chorus in favour of " the sunset 
 by all means," carried the day. So they strolled 
 away towards the hippodrome much in the same 
 order as they had seated themselves at their 
 luncheon, Alford and Marian leading the way. 
 On reaching the bank, which has been mentioned, 
 it became at once evident that a more advanta- 
 geous spot for the witnessing of the spectacle 
 which Alford had promised them, could not 
 have been selected. They were raised just high
 
 302 THE ATKINSES AT R02IE. 
 
 enough above the ground in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of them to command an uninter- 
 rupted view of the low horizon to the westward 
 of the Campagna. It was disputed among them 
 whether a faint hazy stripe of more silvery hue 
 than the rest of the distance were a glimpse of 
 the Mediterranean or not. Certainly the horizon 
 towards which they were looking was so low 
 that it might have been ; and it is very clearly 
 seen from the hill of Tivoli above them. How- 
 ever this may have been, it was evident that 
 their view of the sunset would be a perfect one ; 
 and they sate themselves down on the fragment 
 of a low red-brick wall to wait the short time 
 that must yet elapse before the spectacle would 
 begin. 
 
 Gradually, as they sate, the ripple of talk 
 ceased among them and became still. Nature 
 has among her choicest shows, scenes of such 
 woundrous beauty that they seem to fill the 
 heart too fully to admit of the exchange of 
 words. And such a sunset as that over the 
 Roman Campagna, seen from such a spot as that 
 occupied by our friends, is among the number of 
 them. The glory of the western heavens, and 
 the even more significant if less grandiose glory 
 of the ruins, which assumed in the last slanting
 
 THE VILLA AD EI AN A. 303 
 
 rays hues which no pigments on the cunningest 
 painter's brush could emulate, were beyond all 
 words magnificent and wondrous. 
 
 It was not till the last smallest segment of the 
 red glowing disc had disappeared that a sigh, 
 produced by a combination of feeling which it 
 would be difficult to define, burst from the 
 breasts of most of them, as they rose in silence, 
 and turned to walk towards the entrance of the 
 Villa. 
 
 Then there was the due wrapping of the ladies, 
 and donning of great coats, before getting into 
 the carriages for their return. The drive across 
 the Campagna by moonlight was to the full as 
 pleasant, though perhaps somewhat quieter, 
 than their morning journey. There are cases 
 (and some of those who spent that day together 
 at the Villa Adriana were fully disposed to 
 agree in the assertion) in which the moonlight 
 drive home from a picnic constitutes the most 
 delightful and most memorable fact of the 
 pleasures of the day. It is on the cards, I 
 think, that two or three — it would be more 
 accurate, though less usual perhaps, to say two 
 or four — may look back on that picnic as the 
 most memorable day in their lives.
 
 04 THE ATKINSES AT HOME. 
 
 Meanwhile, I will beg my readers to believe 
 that this is the way to enjoy a visit to perhaps 
 the most remarkable remains that the old Eoman 
 world has left to us, and not " doing " the Yilla 
 Adriana on the way to Tivoli. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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