'I see a divine fountain! A splendid palace! Now it's a statue of some sort! I do believe that dark figure was a monk! I know I shall like it in spite of everything,' cried Matilda excitedly, flattening her nose against the window.
She had been much disappointed at not being able to enter Rome by daylight, so that she might clasp her hands and cry aloud, half-stifled with the overpowering emotions of the moment, 'Roma! Roma! the eternal city, bursts upon my view!' That was the proper thing to do, and it was a blow to make so commonplace and ignoble an entry into the city of her dreams.
Early next morning, Livy was roused from slumber by cries of delight, and, starting up, beheld her artist sister wrapped in a dressing-gown, with dishevelled hair, staring out of the window, and murmuring incoherently,—
'Spanish Steps, that's where the models sit. Propaganda, famous Jesuit school. Hope I shall see the little students in their funny hats and gowns. That's the great monument thing put up to settle the Immaculate Conception fuss. Very fine, but the apostles look desperately tired of holding it up. Dear old houses! Heavens! there's a trattoria man with somebody's breakfast on his head! Don't see any costumes. Where are the sheepskin suits? the red skirts and white head-cloths? Girl with flowers. Oh, how lovely! Mercy on us, there's an officer staring up here, and I never saw him!'
In came the blond head, and the blue dressing-gown vanished from the eyes of the handsome soldier who had been attitudinizing with his high boots, gray and scarlet cloak, jingling sword, and becoming barrette cap, for the especial benefit of the enraptured stranger.
'Livy, it is just superb! Get up and come out at once. It is clouding up, and I must have one look or lose my mind,' said Matilda, flying about with unusual energy.
'You will have to get used to rain if you stay here long, my child,' returned the Raven.
And she was right. It poured steadily for two months, with occasional flurries of snow, also thunder, likewise hurricanes, the tramontàna, the sirocco, and all the other charming features of an Italian winter. That nothing might be wanting, a nice little inundation was got up for their benefit, December 28th.
Sitting peacefully at breakfast on the morning of that day, in their cosey apartment, with a fire of cones and olive-wood cheerily burning on the hearth, Jokerella, the big cat, purring on the rug, the little coffee-pot proudly perched among bread and butter, eggs and fruit, while the ladies, in dressing-gowns and slippers, lounged luxuriously in arm-chairs, one red, one blue, one yellow; they (the ladies, not the chairs) were started by Agrippina, the maid, who burst into the room like a bomb-shell, announcing, all in one breath, that the Tiber had risen, inundated the whole city, and instant death was to be the doom of all.
Rushing to the window to see if the flood had quite covered the steps, and cut off all retreat, the friends were comforted to observe no signs of water, except that half-frozen in the basin of the fountain above which leaned their favourite old Triton, with an icicle on the end of his nose.