POLLY’S JOURNAL CONTINUED
Rome,
A week later.
I’m so glad we’re going to stay here in Rome for a while! Aunt has taken the upper floor of an old palace, and we’re all nicely settled for the spring. Up on the roof is our little terrace garden, so tiny but so perfect, with its stone paths and its borders of pussy-faced pansies and violets. In the corners are huge earthen jars bubbling over with pink roses, and the trellis to one side is covered with big-leaved vines where Cæsar, the mockingbird, hangs in his yellow wicker cage in the shade and makes joyful noises.
The sky is always so blue and the sun so warm and golden up there, and yet, it makes you cool just to let your eyes wander off to the snow-capped mountains in the distance. The dome of St. Peter’s is not far off, and the Vatican—I wonder what plans the clever old Pope is devising over there.
Sometimes I stand by the stone balustrade and gaze down into the narrow dark street far below, where there are small black creatures scurrying and hurrying about, and the bad odors of the city come up, and I hear faintly the shrill cries of the vendors. It is wonderful way up there, in the sunshine, and still lovelier at night when the great moon is sailing in the sky. I hope everybody down in the street has a terrace to go to and be happy on, sometime in their lives.
There’s a little room off the roof garden where we go when the chill of late afternoon creeps over Rome and drives us indoors. After the sun has set behind the clouds, we start an open fire and make tea by candle-light. It’s an artistic little nook, with old carved furniture and brocades and sketches by well-known painters. A wonderful place for beaux!
Just as I finished writing the last entry in my journal, Louisa, our pretty Italian maid, with a great air of secrecy, brought me a sealed letter that a foreign gentleman, so she said, gave her. My Roman adventures have begun!