ent
which stand on the edge of the Pincian Hill.

A flight of travertine steps, twisted and curved to mask the height,
goes down from the church to a diagonal piazza, the Piazza di Spagna,
which is always bright with the roses of flower-sellers, who build their
stalls around a fountain.

At the top of these steps there stands a house, four-square to all
winds, and looking every way over Rome. The sun rises and sets on it,
the odour of the flowers comes up to it from the piazza, and the music
of the band comes down to it from the Pincio. Donna Roma occupied two
floors of this house. One floor, the lower one, built on arches and
entered from the side of the city, was used as a studio, the other was
as a private apartment.

Donna Roma's home consisted of ten or twelve rooms on the second floor,
opening chiefly out of a central drawing-room, which was furnished in
red and yellow damask, papered with velvet wall-papers, and lighted by
lamps of Venetian glass representing lilies in rose-colour and violet.
Her bedroom, which looked to the Quirinal, was like the nest of a bird
in its pale-blue satin, with its blue silk counterpane and its
embroidered cushion at the foot of the bed; and her boudoir, which
looked to the Vatican, was full of vases of malachite and the skins of
wild animals, and had a bronze clock on the chimney-piece set in a
statue of Mephistopheles. The only other occupant of her house, besides
her servants, was a distant kinswoman, called her aunt, and known to
familiars as the Countess Betsy; but in the studio below, which was
connected with the living rooms by a circular staircase, and hung round
with masks, busts, and weapons, there was Bruno Rocco, her
marble-pointer, the friend and housemate of David Rossi.

On the morning after Donna Roma's visit to the Piazza Navona a letter
came from the Baron. He was sending Felice to be her servant. "The man
is a treasure and sees nothing," he wrote. And he added in a footnote:
"Don't look at the newspapers this morning, my child; and if any of them
send to you say nothing."

But Roma had scarcely finished her coffee and roll when a lady
journalist was announced. It was Lena, the rival of Olga both in
literature and love.

"I'm 'Penelope,'" she said. "'Penelope' of the _Day_, you know. Come to
see if you have anything to say in answer to the Deputy Rossi's speech
yesterday. Our editor is anxious to give you every opportunity; and if
you would like to reply thr