Irma in Italy

t her watch she found it was too early for breakfast, and she did not care to go down ahead of the others in this new, strange hotel. So, seated in an e

ants working in the fields that she expected to see on every side. In the distance, however, she had had gl

er heart had beaten quicker. After the sunny ride from the station through crowded streets all, even the indefatigable Uncle Jim, had been

ea and cakes, listening to the music. "It is the Waldorf-Astoria, and the

chair, "and I wonder what we shall see first in Ro

st what they were to see until they had mounted the steps of an old casino; after pass

iliar Aurora, the godlike auburn-haired vision and the spirited horses: Apollo seen in a strong yellowish light, and the attendant hours in robes shading from blue t

intings, there were other fine pictures, but as sh

summer has begun," said Aunt Caroline, "though it is only May. We must accustom

s the piazza to buy a bunch of roses from one of the picturesque flower girls gathered on the lower steps. But when, on the house at the right-hand corner, she read an inscription stating that in this

Aunt Caroline, "even for Marion; two fo

nce they sailed venturing to put the question, "wh

lied gravely, "Marion has had a most unhappy experience. It is hard to say yet whether he is to be blamed or pitied. Until he is ready to talk abo

n fact. At déjeuner Aunt Caroline gave Marion his letters, and Irma noticed that his face reddened as he looked at the envelopes, and that t

letters even while in the carriage, and had p

and I hope you won't be so taken up with tha

sed Irma, "when she wrote that. I am sure I wish that M

Rome when you get this, and I wonder if you have seen the Queen-I mean Margherita. I have a photograph of her that I love, so don't dare come back without seeing her so you can tell me if she is like it. No matter if she hasn't invited you to call, just leave your card, and perhaps they will let you in accidentally. We

id Irma, as she finished, "and though it h

us think you are homesick," and Aunt Caroline patted

the carriage. "There are said to be three hundred and sixty-five churches in Rome, and i

them all," expostulated I

now nearly twenty-four hours without visiting St. Peter's. Such a thing is unheard of a

istoric stream. "A little river like that could never do any damage. It could no

s sometimes hard to manage. There, there, doesn't that please you?" and Irma answered with an exclamation of delight, glancing beyond the bridge to the

ng view; and after a turn or two they were soon crossing the sunny,

some day when there is a great ceremony, when you can see var

a tremendous building; I shall never see another as large, and ye

the first church on the spot. In the beginning there was a circus of Nero's here, where that beautiful emperor was in the habit of torturing Christians to death. T

errogation in Irma's voice. Perhaps it would have been better for her

. It was begun by Julius II in the first part of the sixtee

ought Mich

For after Bramante died, leaving the building far from completed, some of his successors made changes tha

ad been looking at his guidebook. "It was not consecrated u

the landing of the P

gs with great," said U

ed Irma, and for the

he seventeenth century, St. Peter's had cost about fifty million dollars,

," interpolated Irma. "Don't laugh," she cried,

ght of the dome, four hundred and thirty-five feet from the

whole. Yet there are one or two things to see now. I must point out Canova's tomb of Clement XIII, and over there, by the door leading to the dome, you'll find Canova's monument to the last of the

eful as that of a misguided guide," said Irma,

one hundred and forty-ei

r worth seeing," and he led her to the nave, where he showed her in the pave

Marion was standing near, and she suddenly realized that Charlemagne

is older than the present St. Peter's, I doubt that he or his earlier successors stoo

ed before various altars. Tourists of all nations were studying mosaic pictures, sculptured tombs, or were gazing at the priests in rich vestments and the altar boys in one of the chapels where there was a servic

e whole world," she added. "There may not be as many languages as there are peop

subjects, Europa and the bull, Ganymede, as well as scenes directly from the scriptures. She had a chance to adm

nd made the first Christian burying ground. We have as little time for that to-day as for the sacristy with its treasures, or the chapels wi

ter's and then along the Tiber bank, Uncle Jim called

ses are occupied by people of very moderate means. And see that great publ

, crowded with people, to Aunt Caroline's disgust. "T

a portico that Marion recognized at once. "The Pantheon! We were thi

me as in the time of Hadrian. It goes back even farther than Hadrian, for Augustus's son in law, Agrippa, founded the temple, dedicated probably to the gods of the se

ning in our country just then," s

undred years earlier than our Leif Ericson," she retorted. "Uncle J

r this occasion, you and Marion sometimes put m

st interior. "I am afraid," she began, "I am afraid that I li

ner proportions than this. In some ways it isn't what it once was. The bronze casings of part of the walls one of the popes once stripped off to make cannon for St.

Caroline. "It would destroy half the eff

ook now. That open aperture in the centre of the dome that looks like a sma

do when it rai

ey let i

are willing to repeat so aged and infirm

she made no sign as to whether o

on loads of bones

ns II from stripping the gilt tiles from the dome to use in Constantinople. But now you are to look at only two tombs on your way out, this of Victor Emanuel, which is always covered with wreaths, and over there Rap

the Corso," said Uncle

ed disappointing t

joy driving here at the end of a pleasant spring afternoon I can't understand," compla

Italians, and as they can't sit about in piazzas like their countrymen and women a few grades below them, exc

Street, in Boston," said Irma, scornfully, "only it's

lady, just now I won't attempt to sta

compare with Fifth

he Romans do fine afternoons. Some day you'll drive on the Pincian at the f

ome in Rome is not far away. A little off at one side you'll find Donizetti's house, and on the other Sir Walter Scott's, and just ahead of us is the Bonaparte Palace, where

to his hat as if to bow to some one in a passing carriage. He did not

the fairy godfat

r a myth," resp

on said

n treasures. Each day was not long enough. In the morning she usually visited some gallery with her aunt. But in the warmer hours, from twelve to three, they rested. Some object of in

on's sister, and Titian's Holy and Profane Love, and in the Colonna that enormous ceiling painting-I almost broke my neck looking up at it-of the Battle of Lepanto, where some Prince Colonna fought, and some wonder

t of all, with its gilded furniture and fine ceilings and polished floors. How gorgeous it must have looked when a ball was given there in the old days. I'd like to have seen the private apartments and the Colonna gardens. They say it was from a building in the Colonna Gardens that

er which Christ once walked. On this account people must go up and down them on their knees. But it is only on Holy Week that many do this. There are twenty-eight marble steps, although all you can see, as you look through the narrow door, is the wo

a church he founded, and near it is the Baptistery where he was baptized. The font is gree

. Three or four hundred years ago they found it in three pieces buried under ruins, and decided to place it here. Uncle Jim says t

I must say he always seems to suit himself. He knows a great deal. He has usually studied with private tutors and h

n to walk up the broad stairs toward the statue of Marcus Aurelius. He pointed out the places

Marion had been there before, and he says it is almost the only building now left of the time of the Republic. Then we walked through the Capitoline Museum and I recognized many statues,-the Dying Gladiator and Hawthorne's Marble Faun and the busts of the Emperors. Marion says nearly

who had worked himself to death in a competition to recite Greek verses. After we had seen all we wished in the museums, Marion took me through a narrow way, the Via Tarpeia, and past the German Embassy and then through a garden, where we paid an old lady a fee, and then, but of course you ha

ck, and I don't believe Uncle Jim and Aunt Caro