“Two half-open roses on one twig grew,
Sweet is the summer.
A nightingale sang there the whole night through
Sweet is the summer.”
“Here we are! What a comfort that we have not to go to a hotel nor search for lodgings! It is very nice to have a friend to prepare everything.”
In fact, a friend of the family, resident in Rome, who had written and received a score or so of letters on the subject of this journey, was waiting outside the barrier at that moment. They saw her a little apart from the crowd, looking for them as they gave up their tickets; then a servant took their packages, and they were cordially welcomed to Rome. This lady has so long been accustomed to hearing herself announced by the maid-servants of the friends she visits as the “Signora Ottant’-otto,” from the number of her house, that she will not be displeased if we continue the title.
A carriage was called, and in a few minutes they had reached the home prepared for their reception. It was an old-fashioned Roman house, situated on a high slope of the Viminal where it meets the Esquiline in a scarcely perceptible dent. The portone, entrance, and stairs were palatial in size, the latter having broad landings lighted by double windows in the middle of each story; and instead of a mere passage or small waiting-room, the door of the apartment
opened at once into a noble sala. Large chambers surrounded this sala, and a backward-extending wing held smaller rooms and a kitchen. All this part of the house looked into a garden, where orange-trees stood with their sprinkle of fragrant snow, and jasmines reared their solid cones of flowery gold, perfuming every breeze that entered. Beyond the garden extended an orchard and vineyard, hiding all that part of the city except the long roof and façade of the church of St. Catherine of Siena, and the grand old tower that Vittoria Colonna built her convent walls about. These looked over the rich verdure, standing out dark and massive against the clear western sky.
“The front rooms are town, the back rooms country,” the Signora said. “In the front rooms we have the ‘dim, religious light’ that Italians love; here are silence, except for the birds, sunshine, and flowers.”
The front drawing-rooms were conventional, but the sala and dining-room had a character quite new to the travellers. The uncovered brick floors, freshly sprinkled and swept; the faded old screens of green silk or embroidered satin, set in carved frames; the tarnished gilt chairs with scarlet velvet cushions; the large sofas, and tables, and cases of drawers, all finely carved; the walls almost entirely covered with old oil-paintings of every size, some without frames, some so dim that amid the haze of faded color a face would look forth, or an arm be thrust out as from a cloud—all these made up a picture very different from the rich, toned-down freshness of their New England home, where they trod on velvet, and would no more have admitted