griculture instead of commerce; churches and monasteries in
place of cotton-mills; Roman watch-towers instead of factory-chimneys;
trees instead of board-yards; vineyards and olive-groves in place of
blue-grass and persimmon trees; golden oranges in place of crab-apples
and choke-pears; _zigarri scelti_ instead of Cabanas--but this is the
reverse of the medal; let us stop before we ruin our first position.

It was warm in Rome. The English had fled. The Romans, pure blood, once
more wandered toward sunset--not after it--on the Pincian Hill, and trod
with solid step the gravel of _Il Pincio Liberato_. In the Spanish
square around the fountain called Barcaccia, the lemonaders are
encamped; a hint of lemon, a supposition of sugar, a certainty of
water--what more can one expect for a baioccho? From midday until three
o'clock in the afternoon, scarcely a place of business, store or shop,
is open in Rome. The inhabitants are sleeping, clad as Monsieur Dubufe
conceived the original Paradisians should be clad. At sunset, as you
turn down the Via Condotti, you see chairs and tables placed outside the
Cafe Greco for its frequenters. The interior rooms are too, too close.
Even that penetralia, the 'Omnibus,' can not compare with the unwalled
room outside, with its star-gemmed ceiling, and the cool breeze eddying
away the segar-smoke; so its usual occupants are all outside.

At one of these tables sat Caper, Rocjean, and their mutual friend,
Dexter--an animal painter--the three in council, discussing the
question: 'Where shall we go this summer?' Rocjean strongly advocated
the cause of a little town in the Volscian mountains, called Segni,
assuring his friends that two artists of the French Academy had
discovered it the summer before.

'And they told me,' he said, 'that they would have lived there until
this time if they had had it in their power. Not that the scenery around
there was any better, if so good, as at Subiaco, or even Gennezzano; but
the wine was very cheap, and the cost of boarding at the _locanda_ was
only forty baiocchi a day----'

'We will go, we will go!' chimed in Caper.

'There were festivals in some of the neighboring towns nearly every
week, and costumes----'

'Let us travel there,' said Caper, 'at once!'

'Horses were to be had for a song----'

'I am ready to sing,' remarked Dexter.

'There was good shooting; _beccafichi_, woodcock, and quails, also
red-legged partridges----'

'Say no more,' spoke