We descended next morning to realise how original we were in being in the plains of Italy in July. The Fulda people and the Miss Binghams and Mrs. Portheris had prevented our noticing it before, but in the Hotel Mascigni, Via del Tritone, we seemed to have arrived at a point of arid solitude, which gave poppa a new and convincing sense of all he was going through in pursuit of Continental culture. We sat in one corner of the "Sala di mangiari" at a small square table, and in all the length and breadth and sumptuousness of that magnificent apartment—Italian hotel dining-rooms are always florid and palatial—there was only one other little square table with a cloth on it and an appearance of expectancy. The rest were heaped with chairs, bottom side up, with their legs in the air; the chandeliers were tied up in brown holland, and through a depressed and exhausted atmosphere, suggestive of magnificent occasions temporarily in eclipse, moved, with a casual languid air, a very tall waiter and a very short one. At mysterious exits to the rear occasionally appeared the form of the chef exchanging plates. It was borne in upon one that in the season the chef would be remanded to the most inviolable seclusion.

"Do you suppose Pompeii will be any worse than this?" inquired the Senator.

"Talk about Americans pervading the Continent," he continued, casting his eye over the surrounding desolation. "Where are they? I should be glad to see them. Great Scott! if it comes to that, I should be glad to see a blooming Englishman!"

It wasn\'t an answer to prayer, for there had been no opportunity for devotion, but at that moment the door opened and admitted Mr., Mrs., and Miss Emmeline Malt, and Miss Callis. The reunion was as rapt as the Senator and Emmeline could make it, and cordial in every other respect. Mr. Malt explained that they had come straight through from Paris, as time was beginning to press.

"We couldn\'t leave out Rome," he said, "on account of Mis\' Malt\'s mother—she made such a point of our seeing the prison of Saint Paul. In her last letter she was looking forward very anxiously to our safe return to get an account of it. She\'s a leader in our experience meetings, and I couldn\'t somehow make up my mind to face her without it."

"Poppa," remarked Emmeline, "is not so foolish as he looks."

"We were just wondering," exclaimed momma, "who that table was laid for. But we never thought of you. Isn\'t it strange?"

We agreed that it was little short of marvellous.

The tall waiter strolled up for the commands of the Malt party. His demeanour showed that he resented the Malts, who were, nevertheless, innocent respectable people. As Emmeline ordered "café au lait pour tous" he scowled and made curious contortions with his lower jaw. "Anything else you want?" he inquired, with obvious annoyance.

"Yes," said Miss Callis. He further expressed his contempt by twisting his moustache, and waited in silent disdain.

"I want," said Miss Callis sweetly, leaning forward with her chin artlessly poised in her hand, "to know if you are paid to make faces at the guests of this hotel."

There was laughter, above which Emmeline\'s crow rose loud and clear, and as the waiter hastened away, suddenly transformed into a sycophant, poppa remarked, "I see you\'ve got those hotel tickets, too. Let me give you a little pointer. Say nothing about it until next day. They are like that sometimes. In being deprived of the opportunity of swindling us, they feel that they\'ve been done themselves."

"Oh," said Mr. Malt, "we never reveal it for twenty-four hours. That fellow must have smelled \'em on us. Now, how were you proposing to spend the day?"

"We\'re going to the Forum," remarked Emmeline. "Do come with us, Mr. Wick. We should love to have you."

"We mustn\'t forget the Count," said momma to the Senator.
"Are you paid to make faces?"
"Are you paid to make faces?"

"What Count?" Emmeline inquired. "Did you ever, momma! Mis\' Wick knows a count. She\'s been smarter than we have, hasn\'t she? Introduce him to us, Mis\' Wick."

"Emmeline," said her mother severely, "you are as personal as ever you can be. I don\'t know whatever Mis\' Wick will think of you."

"She\'s merely full of intelligent curiosity, Mis\' Malt," said Mr. Malt, who seemed to be in the last stage of infatuated parent. "I know you\'ll excuse her," he added to momma, who said with rather frigid emphasis, "Oh yes, we\'ll excuse her." But the hint was lost and Emmeline remained. Poppa looked in his memorandum book and found that the Count was not to arrive until 3 P.M. There was, therefore, no reason why we should not accompany the Malts to the Forum, and it was arranged.

A quarter of an hour later we were rolling through Rome. As a family we were rather subdued by the idea that it was Rome, there was such immense significance even in the streets with tramways, though it was rather an atmosphere than anything of definite detail; but no such impression weighed upon the Malts. They took Rome at its face value and refused to recognise the unearned increment heaped up by the centuries. However, as we were divided in two carriages, none of us had all the Malts.

It was warm and dusty, the air had a malarious taste. We drove first, I remember, to the American druggist\'s in the Piazza di Spagna for some magnesia Mrs. Malt wanted for Emmeline, who had prickly heat. It was annoying to have one\'s first Roman impressions confused with Emmeline and magnesia and prickly heat; but Mrs. Malt appeared to think that Rome attracted visitors chiefly by means of that American druggist. She said she was perfectly certain we should find an American dentist there, too, if we only took the time to look him up. I can\'t say whether she took the time. We didn\'t.

It was interesting, the Piazza di Spagna, because that is where everybody who has read "Roba di Roma" knows that the English and Americans have lived ever since the days when dear old Mr. Story and the rest used to coach it from Civita Vecchia—in hotels, and pensions, and apartments, the people in Marion Crawford\'s novels. We could only decide that the plain, severe, many-storied houses with the shops underneath had charms inside to compensate for their outward lack. Not a tree anywhere, not a scrap of grass, only the lava pavement, and the view of the druggist\'s shop and the tourists\' agency office. Miss Callis said she didn\'t see why man should be for ever bound up with the vegetable creation—it was like living in a perpetual salad—and was disposed to defend the Piazza di Spagna at all points, it looked so nice and expensive. But Miss Callis\'s tastes were very distinctly urban.

That druggist\'s establishment was on the Pincian Hill! It seemed, on reflection, an outrage. We all looked about us, when we discovered this, for the other six, and another of the foolish geographical illusions of the school-room was shattered for each of us. The Rome of my imagination was as distinctly seven-hilled as a quadruped is four-legged, the Rome I saw had no eminences to speak o............