ll good institutions made possible, rather than any amount
of Papal purple covering poverty, ignorance, and superstition. Better
than the sight of all the red coaches that ever rumbled was the
spectacle of many boys quitting the Jesuit college and demanding
admittance into the free schools; and sweeter than the music of all the
silver trumpets that ever blew were the voices of happy men and women
singing once forbidden songs of liberty in the streets of Rome.

These sentiments, and others equally unfashionable, were only breathed
into the ear of sister Matilda when the two retired to the Campagna to
confide to one another the secrets of their souls--a process necessary
about once a week; for after visiting studios, going to parties, and
telling polite fibs about everything they saw, it was impossible to
exist without finding a vent of some sort. Once out among the aqueducts,
Matilda could freely own that she thought genius a rare article in the
studios, where she expected to learn so much; and Lavinia could make the
awful avowal that parties at which the order of performance was gossip,
tea, music--then music, tea, and gossip, all together--were not her idea
of intellectual society. Their criticisms on pictures and statues cannot
be recorded without covering their humble names with infamy; and why the
sky did not fall upon, or the stones rise up and smite these Vandals, is
a mystery to this day.

They did enjoy much in their own improper manner, but poor Amanda's
sufferings can better be imagined than described. So when Lavinia, early
in March, proposed to flee to the mountains before they became quite
demoralized, and learned to steal and stab, as well as lie and lounge,
she readily assented, and they retired to Albano.

'The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was nothing to this, and
never have I seen such unappreciative women as you two,' sighed Amanda,
as they rolled away from Numero Due Piazza Barberini, leaving Agrippina
sobbing at the top of the stairs and the _padrona_ bobbing little
curtsies at the bottom.

'I am sure the Cenci will haunt me all my days, and so will many other
famous things,' said Matilda, while her eye roved fondly from a very
brown Capuchin monk to a squad of Bersaglieri trotting by with jaunty
cocks' feathers dancing in the wind, muskets gleaming, and trim boots
skipping through the mud with martial regularity.

'When I get the contents of my head sorted out, I shall doubtless
rejoice