so long. What woman who has been first for
a quarter of a century can give up her place without a sigh? But much
has been given to her to soften the years of transition, and she knows
that also, when she looks from her husband to her four boys.

Then, too, it seems more easy to grow old when she catches a glimpse
from time to time of Donna Tullia Del Ferice, who wears her years
ungracefully, and who was once so near to becoming Giovanni
Saracinesca's wife. Donna Tullia is fat and fiery of complexion,
uneasily vivacious and unsure of herself. Her disagreeable blue eyes
have not softened, nor has the metallic tone of her voice lost its
sharpness. Yet she should not be a disappointed woman, for Del Ferice is
a power in the land, a member of parliament, a financier and a
successful schemer, whose doors are besieged by parasites and his
dinner-table by those who wear fine raiment and dwell in kings' palaces.
Del Ferice is the central figure in the great building syndicates which
in 1887 are at the height of their power. He juggles with millions of
money, with miles of real estate, with thousands of workmen. He is
director of a bank, president of a political club, chairman of half a
dozen companies and a deputy in the chambers. But his face is
unnaturally pale, his body is over-corpulent, and he has trouble with
his heart. The Del Ferice couple are childless, to their own great
satisfaction.

Anastase Gouache, the great painter, is also in Rome. Sixteen years ago
he married the love of his life, Faustina Montevarchi, in spite of the
strong opposition of her family. But times had changed. A new law
existed and the thrice repeated formal request for consent made by
Faustina to her mother, freed her from parental authority and brotherly
interference. She and her husband passed through some very lean years in
the beginning, but fortune has smiled upon them since that. Anastase is
very famous. His character has changed little. With the love of the
ideal republic in his heart, he shed his blood at Mentana for the great
conservative principle, he fired his last shot for the same cause at the
Porta Pia on the twentieth of September 1870; a month later he was
fighting for France under the gallant Charette--whether for France
imperial, regal or republican he never paused to ask; he was wounded in
fighting against the Commune, and decorated for painting the portrait of
Gambetta, after which he returned to Rome, cursed politics and marr