the flowers. Within the house the floor of the great hall
was paved with plain white tiles, and up to the cornice and between the
marvellous pilasters the bare walls were hung with coarse linen woven in
simple and tasteful patterns and in subdued colours.

The little gods and goddesses and the emblematic figures of the seasons
in the glorious vaults overhead, smiled down upon such a scene as had
not rejoiced the great hall for centuries. The Countess had asked all
Rome to come, with an admirable indifference to political parties and
social discords; and all Rome came, as it sometimes does, in the best of
tempers with itself and with its hostess. Roman society is good to look
at, when it is gathered together in such ways; for mere looks, there is
perhaps nothing better in all Europe, except in England. The French are
more brilliant, no doubt, for their women, and, alas, their men also,
affect a greater variety of dress and ornament than any other people.
German society is magnificent with military uniforms, Austrians
generally have very perfect taste; and so on, to each its own advantage.
But the Romans have something of their own, a beauty most distinctly
theirs, a sort of distinction that is genuine and unaffected, but which
nevertheless seems to belong to more splendid times than ours. When the
women are beautiful, and they often are, they are like the pictures in
their own galleries; among the men there are heads and faces that remind
one of Lionardo da Vinci, of Caesar Borgia, of Lorenzo de' Medici, of
Guidarello Guidarelli, even of Michelangelo. Romans, at their best, have
about them a grave suavity, or a suave gravity, that is a charm in
itself, with a perfect self-possession which is the very opposite of
arrogance; when they laugh, their mirth is real, though a little
subdued; when they are grave, they do not look dull; when they are in
deep earnest, they are not theatrical.

Those who went to the Fortiguerra garden party never quite forgot the
impression they received. It was one of those events that are remembered
as memorable social successes, and spoken of after many years. It was
unlike anything that had ever been done in Rome before, unlike the
solemn receptions of the chief of the clericals, when the cardinals come
in state and are escorted by torch-bearers from their carriages to the
entrance of the great drawing-room, and back again when they go away;
unlike the supremely magnificent balls in honour of t