She was still going over in her mind the conversation of the morning, when Astrid and Fru Bjork entered, ready for the drive. Ragna started guiltily and Astrid pointed a derisive finger:
"Behold the punctual Ragna! Who's late this time, Miss?"
"I'll be ready in a second," said Ragna flying about the room, while Fru Bjork subsided to a chair, settling her bonnet strings under her double chin.
"There, there!" she said in her comfortable way, "don't hurry so, there's no harm done!"
"Now I'm ready!" cried Ragna.
"Why, my child," exclaimed Fru Bjork, "you have one grey glove and one tan one, and you have put your green coat over your blue frock!"
Astrid giggled, "The air of Rome must have gone to your head!"
Ragna, much confused, rectified her mistakes, and the party set out. They drove to the Doria Pamphilj gardens and afterwards to the Janiculum. Fru Bjork stopped the carriage and they got out and walked. Ragna loved the view from that point better than any other she had seen; the huge mass of St. Peter's, towering like a Titan above the city dwarfing all else by the symmetrical immensity of the dome, fascinated and held her. It dominated humanity, she thought even as it dominated Rome,—the Mother Church, Mistress of the World, rising triumphant on the ruins of the past.
She would willingly have stood there for hours, but the early winter dusk was falling; Astrid shivered and Fru Bjork said "Home."
The return drive through the Trastevere was a delight to Ragna, though Astrid turned up her delicate nose at the variety of smells, and Fru Bjork commented at length on the unhealthfulness of defective drainage. To Ragna it seemed a fairy world, and the hour after sunset, "blind man's holiday" brought out all the wonder and mystery of it, throwing a kindly veil over dirt and sordid details. Lights twinkled in the winding streets, and as they passed Hilda's Tower they saw the glow of the lamp in the shrine. And beneath it all, there ran as an undercurrent in Ragna's mind, the Prince in Rome!