at we engaged
to go and see the Roastpig Aurora to-day,' answered Matilda, who
insisted on pronouncing Rospigliosi in that improper manner.

'I like this infinitely better than any of your picturesque
refrigerators, and it thrills me more to watch one of those dear, dirty
soldiers save women and babies than to see a dozen "Dying Gladiators"
gasping for centuries in immortal marble,' added Lavinia, who had
shocked her artistic friends by sniffing at the famous statue, and
wishing the man would die and done with it, and not lie squirming there.

'Come away, Mat: she has no soul for art, and it is all in vain to try
and breathe one into her,' said Amanda, with the calm pity of one who
had read up every great picture, studied up every famous statue, and
knew what to admire, when to thrill, and just where the various emotions
should come in.

So they left the outcast perched on a wall, waving her muff at them,
and calling out, 'Nater for ever!' to the great horror of an English
lady, who would have seen all Rome upset without any unseemly
excitement.

That night the gas gave out, and mysterious orders were left at houses
for lamps to be kept burning till morning. Thieves abounded, and the
ladies prepared their arms--one pistol, one dagger, and a large
umbrella--then slept peacefully, undisturbed by the commotion in the
kitchen, where cats, live chickens, and Pina's five grandmothers, all
lived together, rent free.

Amanda's last prediction was, that they would find themselves gently
floating out at the Porta Pia about midnight. Mat wailed for a submerged
gallery in which she had hoped to ice herself on the morrow, and Livy
indulged the sinful hope that the Pope would get his pontifical
petticoats very wet, be a little drowned, and terribly scared by the
flood, because he spoilt the Christmas festivities, and shut up all the
cardinals' red coaches.

Next day the water began to abate, and people made up their minds that
the end of the world was not yet. Gentlemen paid visits on the backs of
stout soldiers, ladies went shopping in boats, and family dinners were
handed in at two-story windows without causing any remark, so quickly do
people adapt themselves to the inevitable.

Hardly had the watery excitement subsided when a new event set the city
in an uproar.

The King was not expected till the tenth of January; but the kind soul
could not wait, and, as soon as the road was passable, he came with
300,000 francs in h