e. I say that over to
myself, and I read _Lanciani_ and _Hare_, and then I don't know whether
it rains or not. Besides, yesterday was clear on purpose for me to walk
in the Pincian and Borghese Gardens. Brown had to go with me because
Aunt Mary was afraid there would be another storm; and besides, some
little English ladies she has met in our hotel had invited her to have
tea with them in their bedroom. They make it themselves with their own
things, because then you don't have to pay; and if there aren't enough
cups to go round among the ladies they've asked, they take their
tooth-brush glasses for themselves. And they bring in custardy cakes in
paper-bags and cream in tiny pails which they hide in their muffs, and
try to look unconscious. There are a lot here like that, and they stay
all winter. None of them are married, and they all do and say exactly
the things you know they will beforehand. Why, just to look at them you
feel sure they'd have tatting on their stays, and make their own
garters. But some of them are titled, or if they're not they talk a
great deal about being "well connected"; and they do nothing on weekdays
but read novels, work in worsteds, and play bridge with the windows
hermetically sealed; or on Sundays but go to the English church. Only
think, and they're in _Rome_!

I haven't wasted one minute since we came, but, thank goodness, I'm not
trying to "_do_" Rome scientifically and exhaustively like so many poor
wilted-looking Americans I've met here. They think they must see every
picture in every gallery, and put at least their noses inside every
church; and then they scribble things down in their note-books--things
which will do them just as much good afterwards as Lizard Bill's
writings on his slate when the ink trickled over his nose, in _Alice's
Adventures_. One American lady in this hotel said her daughters had
dragged her about so much that she didn't know what country she was in
any more, except by the postage stamps. If I were in her place I should
lie down to take a nap when I arrived in town, and _say_ I had seen the
things when I went back to Fond du Lac; there's where she lived before
her daughters took to doing Paris in one day and London in two; they
told me quite simply that was the time you needed to give.

Dad, _we drove in the automobile along the Appian Way_. It sounds
shocking, but it wasn't; it was glorious. There is never anything
jarring (I don't mean that for a pun) about