the winter was well begun she received us in a
room without fire. She was wrapped in furs from head to foot while we
shivered with cold. She appeared to be about sixty years of age, and
showed no traces of the beauty which I had seen in a portrait of her
taken in her youth. She spoke English fluently, but with idioms derived
from other languages, in some of which I should have understood her more
easily than in my own.

Our first winter abroad was passed in Rome, which I now saw for the
first time as the capital of a united Italy. The king, "_Il Re
Galantuomo_," was personally popular with all save the partisans of the
Pope's temporal dominion. I met him more than once driving on Monte
Pinciano. He was of large stature, with a countenance whose extreme
plainness was redeemed by an expression of candor and of good humor.

In the course of this winter Victor Emmanuel died. The marks of public
grief at this event were unmistakable. The ransomed land mourned its
sovereign as with one heart.

I recall vividly the features of the king's funeral procession, which
was resplendent with wreaths and banners sent from every part of Italy.
The monarch's remains were borne in a crimson coach of state, drawn by
six horses. His own favorite war-horse followed, veiled in crape. Nobles
and servants of noble houses walked before and after the coach in
brilliant costumes, bareheaded, carrying in their hands lighted torches
of wax. I stood to see this wonderful sight with my dear friend Sarah
Clarke, at a window of her apartment opposite to the Barberini Palaces.
As the cortege swept by I dropped my tribute of flowers.

I was also present when King Umberto took the oath of office before the
Italian Parliament, to whose members in turn the oath of allegiance was
administered. In a box, in full view, were seated a number of royalties,
to wit, Queen Margherita, her sister-in-law, the Queen of Portugal, the
Prince of Wales, and the then Crown Prince of Germany, loved and
lamented as "_unser Fritz_." The little Prince of Naples sat with his
royal mother, and kindly Albert Edward of England lifted him in his arms
at the crowning moment in order that he might better see what was going
on.

By a curious chance I had one day the pleasure of taking part with
Madame Ristori in a reading which made part of an entertainment given in
aid of a public charity. Madame Ristori had promised to read on this
occasion the scene from the play of Maria Stuar