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Genoa , February 19th. Your most interesting letter, Sir Philosopher, reached me at Gibraltar, and served to give me a homelike feeling in that alien land of Spain. Any one who can write letters as interesting as yours, from your library, with the mercury at zero outside, and nothing more refreshing to look upon from the window than snow and sleet, does not need to wander in sunny lands and among ancient ruins for an inspiration. No, travel would be absolutely wasted upon you, who require only a

February 22d. Of course the sun was shining when we left Genoa. We were glad to see how fair La Superba could be, with her terraced gardens, many villas, and noble background of blue mountains. Indeed, I confess to some qualms of conscience, feeling that I may have given you a too gloomy picture of the fine old city; but how can one give a cheerful view of the attractions of a place where one's gayest hours were spent in a cemetery? Our way lay along the sea by the Western Riviera, one of the ga

Naples , March 2d. If Lady Morgan wrote of her beloved Irish capital "dear, dirty Dublin," we may describe Naples less alliteratively in somewhat the same words, except that to American eyes the Neapolitan city is even dirtier and vastly more beautiful. Indeed, no words written nor pictures painted give any adequate conception of the blueness of the sea, the soft purple shades upon the mountains, and the fine transparency and lightness of this air. One breathes in gayety with every breath, a cer

Cava dei Tirreni , March 8th. We have spent the day in the streets and houses of Pompeii, living over again in the buried city the thrilling scenes of Lord Lytton's novel. His descriptions are still marvellously accurate, although so much has been unearthed since he wrote "The Last Days of Pompeii" that the ruins as they stand to-day are much more extensive than those pictured by the novelist. The house of Glaucus is called by the guides the House of the Tragic Poet, but the mosaic of the dog, w

Via Sistina, Rome , March 16th. We felt as if we had accomplished a day's work before we left Naples, this morning, the getting away from these places is so laborious. After our trunks were strapped and ready for the facchini and porters, the feeing of the servants had to be attended to. This was Angela's especial task. She had managed the financial part of our six days' trip so admirably that Zelphine and I have honored her by electing her bursar for the party. She does not seem fully to apprec

Via Sistina, Rome , March 22d. Your letter in answer to mine written from San Remo reached me to-day. It really seems a year since I wrote you that letter, instead of one month. So many impressions have come crowding one upon another since then that I cannot quite recall what I said of a personal nature. The meeting with Genevra brought back the old familiar associations so vividly that we sometimes forgot all that had happened since we had parted, and lived over our early, happy days. If you re

Via Sistina, Rome , March 23d. It is so delightful to have some one with us who knows and loves Rome as Ludovico does. He shows us about con amore and with the greatest enthusiasm, not in the perfunctory guide-book fashion. He and Angela are already good friends, and chatter away like two magpies about everything upon the earth and beneath it as well, which is quite natural, as many of our proposed excursions are subterranean, and we never know what wonder of the world may be sprung upon us at t

Monday, March 28th. Ludovico proposed that we should take the long-talked-of drive along the Via Appia this beautiful afternoon. Knowing Angela's objection to subterranean excursions, he discreetly said nothing about the Catacombs, although I realized well that they were uppermost in his mind, and felt that I might safely trust a bit of diplomacy to this clever little Italian. As we are living in the north-eastern part of Rome and the Via Appia is in the southern part, leading toward the Pontine

Via Sistina , April 7th. A grand and elaborate Gregorian ceremonial is to be held in St. Peter's on Monday, the eleventh, and, as you may imagine, tout le monde , the small world as well as the great, is rushing after tickets. We were able to secure the white entrance cards from our banker on the Piazza di Spagna, with which we were quite satisfied until Miss Dean, the charming Irish lady who sits next to me at the table d'hôte, showed me a yellow biglietto , which assures her a seat in the trib

Tuesday, April 12th. The "something quite different" that Zelphine and I consented to do with Angela yesterday afternoon was to go to the Villa Madama. The drive was pleasant, and the villa itself is charmingly situated on one of the precipitous sides of Monte Mario, but alas! when we reached the entrance gate we found it barred and bolted, which shows how important it is to consult guide-books and local itineraries before making these expeditions. Rosalie, who was with us, spied a man in the gr

Orvieto , April 27th. We have been travelling so fast, in the last days, that there has been no time for writing, which is my excuse for not sending you a letter from Viterbo, whose middle-age charms might fill many pages. Now I am writing with the brilliant colors of the façade of Orvieto's great cathedral still dazzling my eyes. We saw it first at sunset, when its exquisite colors were intensified, and glowed in harmony with the delicate rose and rich golden glory of the sky. With its vast mos

Perugia , April 28th. The journey from Orvieto to Perugia is a short one, and we had our first sight of this fine old town in the brilliancy of a spring afternoon. We were fortunate in finding a cab at the station, and a vetturino who welcomed us to his coach with great cordiality, we being the only arrivals by the afternoon train. Having with many ejaculations disposed of us and our various pieces of hand-luggage, large and small, he hospitably invited a comely peasant woman to a seat by his si

Assisi , Saturday Evening, May 1st. As we first beheld Assisi from the railroad station at sunset, the delicate mauve pink of her towers and walls glowed with a more rosy hue and it seemed as if the old town for a brief moment must have worn something of the grace of her long-vanished youth. On one side of the station is the little village of the plain, Santa Maria degli Angeli, with the church from which it takes its name, so christened by St. Francis in memory of the angelic visions here grant

Lung' Arno delle Grazie, Florence , May 6th. Do you realize that your letter in answer to mine of March 18th from Rome was not quite within the pact? I found it awaiting me at Siena, with a number of others. I thought my explanation quite clear and eminently sane, but you seem to have strangely perverted my meaning; then you revert to an earlier letter from La Cava, and are pleased to imagine that we are taking risks all the time and leading a reckless life generally. I shall really hesitate to

Hotel Croce di Savoia , Vallombrosa , May 10th. The day has been spent in driving, walking, and climbing hills, yet we seem to feel no fatigue, so invigorating is this air, "mountain air, sheathed in Italian sunshine," as Mrs. Browning aptly described it. Vallombrosa is three thousand feet above Florence—small wonder that we have been ascending skyward since we drove away from Pelago this morning! Zelphine's pet project was to stop over night at the hermitage of Il Paradisino, which is on a rock

Fiesole , Tuesday, May 17th. We women, in the absence of our cavaliers, who will be away for two days upon some special military service, have planned to spend a day in fairyland and an evening in Bohemia. Is not that a sufficiently sensational beginning to please one of our own newspapers at home? This morning, Bertha and Mrs. Robins having joined us, we all set forth in a tram from the Piazza della Signoria for Fiesole. Half-way up the hillside we stopped at the Domenico, where Fra Angelico li

Beau Rivage, Venice , May 25th. As we first saw Venice from the train, across a stretch of green marsh, its domes, spires, churches, and bridges seemed to rise out of the water just as you see them in Turner's pictures, with such an atmosphere as that great artist knew how to paint, veiling the delicate ethereal beauty of this bride of the sea. We were aroused from our rapt contemplation of the scene before us by the bustle and commotion of the arrival of the train and questions about luggage, h

Villa d'Este, Lake Como , June 27th. Dear Mamma : When you next send your only daughter abroad, I advise you to choose for her guardians and companions the young and giddy rather than the mature and sedate. Here am I, the youngest of the party and "the likeliest," as Aunt Lyddy would say, in the curious position of chaperon to my elders and betters, which is not easy, as I have never learned the art of being in two places at one time. If it were not for Mrs. Coxe I really do not know what would