It is lovely to walk by this river in the sunlight, because then there are women down below, on the shallow strips of beach that crop up here and there, who wash clothes by beating them on stones _with_ stones, and who sing and joke, or call scornful taunts at each other, as they work. But this day it was empty save for a little boy who sat in the stern of a moored boat and fished--I suppose with a bent pin on his string--just as his little American brother might do in my own land. After I had walked toward the Grazia Bridge, and crossed the street to see something I thought pretty in one of the windows of the shops, I turned and went back toward the Ponte Vecchio, which means “The Old Bridge,” and as I walked across this I considered what I would buy to take home to Mother, Father, Roberta and the twins. I did this because the bridge is lined with little shops that have windows that twinkle from the gold and silver they hold and the gleaming of all the stones I had ever heard of and many, many more. Then--and with the weighted, unpleasant feeling still with me--I turned in the direction that would take me home, and hurried as quickly as I could because the rain was coming down faster and it was coming on the slant. The people in the shops I passed were idle, and the women huddled up with the stewpot little stoves they call scaldinoes tucked under their feet and skirts. They still sat in their doorways although a real storm raged, and I learned that day, truly, that most of Italy does live in the street. As I turned in the Via Nazionale, which is our street and becomes the Piazza Indipendenza as soon as it reaches the park, I saw, through an open door, a piece of stove pipe that stood on four legs and had a curling little chimney at one end, and that made me smile a little, for the original pattern was invented by an American sea captain who wintered in Florence and almost died of the cold; and the stoves--which Mr. Wake says get much hotter than the infernal regions ever _could_--are called “American pigs.” I found the hall very, very dark, and after I had climbed the stairs and got in the Pension corridor I found that that also was dark, and then Miss Julianna came along, switched on the lights, and through that I heard Beata’s story. “She is ashamed,” said Miss Julianna, “to have you see the _cry on her cheek_.” I said I was sorry, as Beata, who had been sitting in the half light by a table, lowered her head and looked away. “It is sad,” Miss Julianna agreed, “the good girl, Beata! She loves very much, and also has love give to her, but has not the dowry! And you know here it is necessary.” “Can’t she earn it?” I asked. “She had save some, but her small brother, Giuseppe, walks of the crutch, and could be made well; for him she give her money that was saved. No, Beata?” she ended, after adding a string of Italian that was too quickly spoken for me to follow. Beata nodded, and _she_ spoke quickly, and then she sobbed.