rn he will carry old Grandmother Nanna every Sunday
morning to early Mass, so that she will not miss it because I am no
longer there.

I shall never want the boat again, because I am going to become a
citizen of Florence.

It is true that we leave to-day for our automobile ride to Rome, but I
shall come back again. That is what everyone does who has once been
here.

Why did you not tell me about the Palazzo Vecchio with the wonderful
statues in the Loggia? Did you think that because we have so much
beauty in our old Venice I should care for none elsewhere?

And the pictures in the Pitti and the Uffizi palaces,--you should have
warned me that I would wear my eyes out with much looking at them! And
it is one thing to hear of Michael Angelo, and quite another to see
his great works!

The American lady, Mrs. Sprague, with her guide-book, follows the
English-speaking guide about, and continually interrupts him to ask,
"At what page have we arrived now?"

But her daughter is different. She carries no guide-book. She has a
boy's mind and asks questions about everything. She asked me about the
tunnels through which my train came from Venice. Ah, those tunnels!
There were twenty-two of them in sixteen miles, and the train whizzed
in and out in the most exciting manner.

More I cannot say, but that I am perfectly happy! And I shall sign my
name Benvenuto, because the American girl says I am welcome.

A thousand greetings to you, from your absent crab of a boy in
Florence,

RAFAEL VALLA.

* * * * *

During that wonderful automobile ride from Florence to Rome, Rafael
was glad that his mother had told him so many stories of her native
city. There was pointed out to him on one of the Tuscan hills not far
from Florence, the same yoke of oxen that had drawn the car through
the city streets on the previous Easter, and he was able to tell Edith
the whole story of the "Burning of the Car."

The chauffeur, under Mrs. Sprague's directions, took them off the
highway and close to the oxen and their driver. The horns of the oxen
were decorated with garlands of flowers and gay paper streamers,
because they were again to take part in a festival,--the festival of
the vintage; and on the drag behind them rested a great tun for the
wine.

Rafael spoke to the smiling contadino and asked if they might follow
him to the harvest.

"Not follow," he answered; "the oxen move but slowly, and must first
dr