to notice what a miraculous place Rome
is; how the intervening years of purgatorial flames have turned old Nero
himself into a fairly benevolent, soft old gentleman, even though his
estates have crumbled to such an extent that he may put his golden
palace into the head of his cane, which he always carries now, since his
chariots have gone away. Where are they? Caligula has even made it up
with his mother-in-law, and you reflect with joy on that fact, as the
two flit by your mind's eye, hand in hand. All this nonsense is for
those of us who HAVE awakenings. The rest of "our party" may sit at
Spillman's and eat coffee-cakes and sip Lachrymae Christi, while we walk
alone through the Coliseum, with the crowd of old heathen. They stop,
every one, at the iron cross in the middle, reared over their carnage
and mad mirth, and press their lips to it now. The centuries have done
that. We only, alas! stand gazing mournfully, doubtingly. "Will you
have another coffee-cake?" says some one, and we remember that we are at
Spillman's also. And, indeed, we might be more sensible to stay with our
party always; eat cakes, drink wine, laugh at the old world, vaunt the
new, read Baedeker and the Bible, say our orthodox Protestant prayers,
with a special "Lead us not into Romanism" codicil, and go to bed,
and dream of our own golden houses, Paris dresses, and fat letters of
credit.

At any rate, Mae Madden was electrified by a great sudden sweep of love,
a surging rush of reverence for Rome, and makes no doubt in her own
mind, to this day, that the Faun laughed with her in her joy. In this
exalted frame of mind, she wandered down through the long halls. She was
passing from the room of the Caesars when she heard Norman's voice. So
he had come for her with Eric. She had half fancied he would. She paused
to listen. It was a ringing elastic voice, in no wise lagging in speech,
with a certain measurement in its tones, as if he weighed his words and
thoughts, and gave them out generously, pound for pound, a fair measure
which our grandmother's recipes approved. Mae smiled to herself. "He has
loved Rome always. He caught the spirit of it long ago. He will be glad
to know I have found it also. I wish"--and Mae sighed a scrap of a
sigh, and looked down at the toe of her boot, with which she drew little
semi-circles before her.

Mae was truly in a very tender mood to-day. I think if Norman had caught
sight of her face at that moment, he would have s