mountains, from north and
south, from the magic shore of Sorrento, and from distant French bathing
places, some with brides or husbands, some with rosy Roman babies making
their first trumphal entrance into Rome--and some, again, returning
companionless to the home they had left in companionship. The great and
complicated machinery of social life is set in order and repaired for
the winter; the lost or damaged pieces in the engine are carefully
replaced with new ones which will do as well or better, the joints and
bearings are lubricated, the whistle of the first invitation is heard,
there is some puffing and a little creaking at first, and then the big
wheels begin to go slowly round, solemnly and regularly as ever, while
all the little wheels run as fast as they can and set fire to their
axles in the attempt to keep up the speed, and are finally jammed and
caught up and smashed, as little wheels are sure to be when they try to
act like big ones. But unless something happens to one of the very
biggest the machine does not stop until the end of the season, when it
is taken to pieces again for repairs.

That is the brief history of a Roman year, of which the main points are
very much like those of its predecessor and successor. The framework is
the same, but the decorations change, slowly, surely and not, perhaps,
advantageously, as the younger generation crowds into the place of the
older--as young acquaintances take the place of old friends, as faces
strange to us hide faces we have loved.

Orsino Saracinesca, in his new character as a contractor and a man of
business, knew that he must either spend the greater part of the summer
in town, or leave his affairs in the hands of Andrea Contini. The latter
course was repugnant to him, partly because he still felt a beginner's
interest in his first success, and partly because he had a shrewd
suspicion that Contini, if left to himself in the hot weather, might be
tempted to devote more time to music than to architecture. The business,
too, was now on a much larger scale than before, though Orsino had taken
his mother's advice in not at once going so far as he might have gone.
It needed all his own restless energy, all Contini's practical talents,
and perhaps more of Del Ferice's influence than either of them
suspected, to keep it going on the road to success.

In July Orsino's people made ready to go up to Saracinesca. The old
prince, to every one's surprise, declared his i