e theaters. The house is a very fortress for
strength."

The Mrs. Ross in this letter was Janet Ross, daughter of Lady Duff
Gordon, remembered to-day for her Egyptian letters. The Ross castle
was but a little distance away.

*****

To Mrs. Crane, in Elmira:

VILLA VIVIANI, SETTIGNANO, FLORENCE.

Sept. 30, 1892

DEAR SUE,--We have been in the house several days, and certainly it is a
beautiful place,--particularly at this moment, when the skies are a
deep leaden color, the domes of Florence dim in the drizzling rain, and
occasional perpendicular coils of lightning quivering intensely in the
black sky about Galileo's Tower. It is a charming panorama, and the most
conspicuous towers and domes down in the city look to-day just as they
looked when Boccaccio and Dante used to contemplate them from this
hillock five and six hundred years ago.

The Mademoiselle is a great help to Livy in the housekeeping, and is a
cheery and cheerful presence in the house. The butler is equipped with a
little French, and it is this fact that enables the house to go--but
it won't go well until the family get some sort of facility with the
Italian tongue, for the cook, the woman-of-all-work and the coachman
understand only that. It is a stubborn and devilish language to learn,
but Jean and the others will master it. Livy's German Nauheim girl is
the worst off of anybody, as there is no market for her tongue at all
among the help.

With the furniture in and the curtains up the house is very pretty, and
not unhomelike. At mid-night last night we heard screams up stairs--Susy
had set the lofty window curtains afire with a candle. This sounds kind
of frightful, whereas when you come to think of it, a burning curtain
or pile of furniture hasn't any element of danger about it in this
fortress. There isn't any conceivable way to burn this house down, or
enable a conflagration on one floor to climb to the next.

Mrs. Ross laid in our wood, wine and servants for us, and they are
excellent. She had the house scoured from Cellar to rook the curtains
washed and put up, all beds pulled to pieces, beaten, washed and put
together again, and beguiled the Marchese into putting a big porcelain
stove in the vast central hall. She is a wonderful woman, and we don't
quite see how or when we should have gotten under way without her.

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