r managed in Paris. There you always find a
_concierge_, who tells you all you want to know, and who speaks several
languages. In Rome you enter a narrow, dark passage, and look in vain
for a door. Then you go up a flight of stairs, and see a door with a
string; you pull the string, and a woman puts her mouth to a square
hole, covered with tin punctured with holes, and asks what you want. You
tell her, and she tells you to go up higher; you repeat the process, and
at last reach the rooms. The higher up the better, because you get some
sun, and one learns the value of sunlight. I saw no sun in Paris in my
room, and here I have it half of the day, and it seems very pleasant.

"All the customs of the people differ from those of Paris....

"A little of Italian art enters into the ornaments of rooms and
furniture, but anything like mechanical skill seems to be unheard of;
and I dare say the pretty stamp used on the butter I have, which
represents some antique picture, was cut by some northern hand. I could
make a better cart than those that I see on the streets, and I could
_almost_ make as good horses as those that draw them!...

"It is Holy Week. I have spent seven hours at a time at St. Peter's, in
terrible crowds, for ten days, and now I go no more. The ladies are
seated, but as the ceremonies are in different parts of the immense
building, they rush wildly from one to the other; with their black veils
they look like furies let loose! I stayed five hours to-day to see the
Pope wash feet, which was very silly; for I saw mother wash them much
more effectually twenty years ago!

"The crowd is better worth seeing than the ceremony, if one could only
see it without being in it. I shall not try to hear the 'Miserere'--I
have given up the study of music! Since I failed to appreciate Mario, I
sha'n't try any more!

"I go to the Storys' on Sunday evening to look at St. Peter's lighting
up.

"March 21. I have been to vespers at St. Peter's. They begin an hour
before sunset. When my work is done for the day, I walk to St. Peter's.
This is Sunday, and the floor was full of kneeling worshippers, but that
makes no difference. I walk about among them.

"I was there an hour to-day before I saw a person that I knew; then I
met the Nicholses and went with them into a side chapel to hear vespers.
Then I saw next the Waterstons, then Miss Lander; but I was unusually
short of friends, I generally meet so many more.

"There were knee