hion as a hotel; near
too, which is better, to Mr. Story's studio and the old Barberini palace
and the Barberini square and fountains. Off behind, is that terrible
church of the Cappucini, with its cemetery underneath of bones and
skulls and such horrors. I like the apartments very much, principally
because I have made three staunch friends and one good enemy, in the
kitchen. The padrona,--she's the woman who keeps the house, and serves
us, too, in this case--though Mrs. Jerrold has a maid to wait on the
table and care for our rooms--well, the padrona is my first friend. Her
cousin, a handsome southern Italian, is here on a visit, and she is not
only my friend, but my instructress. She tells me lovely stories about
her home and the peasants and their life, while I sit on the floor with
Giovanni,--friend number three and eldest son of the padrona,--and even
Roberto, my enemy, the crying baby of three years, hushes his naughty
mouth to listen to Lisetta, for that is the cousin's name. I am so
glad I studied Italian as hard as I did for my music, for it comes very
easily to me now, and already I slip the pretty words from my halting
tongue much more smoothly and quickly than you would imagine I could.
Mrs. Jerrold isn't quite satisfied, and would prefer the Costanzi, only
she doesn't believe in letting us girls stay at large hotels. She and
Edith are shocked at my kitchen tastes, so that I generally creep off
quietly and say nothing about it. It is strange for me to have to keep
anything secret, but I am learning how.

As for our clothes, O, mamma, Edith is ravishing in a deep blue-black
silk, with a curly, wavy sort of fringe on it, and odd loopings here
and there where you don't expect to find them. What can't a Parisian
dressmaker do? They have such a wonderful idea of appropriateness, it
seems to me. Now, at home you know we girls always wear the same sort
of thing, but Madame H---- says no, Edith, and I should dress very
differently; and now Edith's clothes all have a flow, and sweep, and
grace about them, and her silks rustle in a stately way as she walks,
while my dresses haven't any trimming to speak of, but are cut in a
clinging, square sort of way, with jackets, and here and there a buckle,
that makes me feel half the time as if I were playing soldier in a
lady-like fashion. But what a budget this is. How shocked the people
here would be. They take travel so solemnly, mamma, and treat Baedeker,
like the Bible,--a