ted with the study of art in 'dear Rome.'

They went to fancy parties, where artists got themselves up like their
own statues and pictures, and set mediaeval fashions which it was a pity
the rest of the world did not follow. They drank much social tea with
titled beings, as thick as blackberries, and, better still, men and
women who had earned noble names for themselves with pencil, pen, or
chisel. They paid visits in palaces where the horses lived in the
basement, rich foreigners on the first floor, artists next, and princes
in the attic.

They went to the hunt, and saw scarlet coats, fine horses, bad riding,
many hounds, and no foxes.

As a change they got up game parties _a la_ Little Athens in their own
small _salon_, introduced the Potatoe Pantomime, had charades, and
enacted the immortal Jarley's waxworks on one of the Seven Hills.

A true Yankee breakfast of fish-balls, johnny-cake, and dip-toast, was
given in their honour, and its delights much enhanced by its being
eaten in a lovely room with reeds and rushes on the pale-green walls,
shell-shaped chairs, and coral mirror-frames. What a thing it was to
consume those familiar viands in a famous palace, with Guido's Cenci
downstairs, a great sculptor next door, three lovely boys as waiters,
and 'Titian T.' to head the feast, and follow it up with dates from the
Nile, and Egyptian sketches that caused the company to vote a speedy
adjournment to the land 'of corkendills' and pyramids.

These and many other joys they tasted, and when all else palled upon
them they drove on the Campagna and were happy.

It is sad to be obliged to record that these quiet drives were the
especial delight of the unsocial Lavinia, whose ill-regulated mind soon
wearied of swell society, classical remains, and artistic revelry.
Ancient Rome would have suited her excellently, she thought; but modern
Rome was such a chaos of frivolity and fanaticism, poverty and
splendour, dirt and devilry, dead grandeur and living ignorance, that
she felt as if shut up in a magnificent tomb, the bad air of which was
poisoning both body and soul.

Her only consolation was the new freedom, that seemed to blow over Rome
like a wholesome wind. Old residents lamented the loss of the priestly
pageants, _fetes_, and ceremonies; but this republican spinster
preferred to see Rome guarded by her own troops, and governed by her own
King, who ordered streets to be cleaned, fountains filled, schools
opened, and a