In my room, before I lit the light, I will confess that I had a little moment of sadness, during which home seemed far away and I wished I had as much money to spend as Leslie had. . . . I had wanted to give Miss Meek and Miss Bannister and Mr. Hemmingway very nice presents, because they needed them, but of course I couldn’t give them much. I had found for Miss Bannister a leather picture frame in a shop that was opposite the Pitti Palace--she had said she meant to get a frame for a picture she had of her old home, but that she always forgot it while out, (she is really very poor) and I had got for Miss Meek, who is very gay, a gray comb that had brilliants in it--it was only fifty cents; I got it in a stall outside of a church called Santa Croce--and I had got Mr. Hemmingway a book from a little shop back of the Duomo that had “My memories” written on it in gilt--I mean on the book, not the Duomo, of course--for I thought he would enjoy writing down some of the happenings that occurred at the times he never could remember. Then I had two lovely colored linen handkerchiefs which had been given me before I sailed, and fortunately, I had only carried them and never put them into active use, and I did these up for Beata and Miss Julianna. I didn’t give anything to the others, and I wished I could. I had that feeling that leads even restrained people to rush out on Christmas Eve and buy a great deal that they can’t afford, but after I reasoned it through I knew that I shouldn’t, because I wanted to pay back Miss Sheila--I had decided that I preferred to do this--and I wanted to return what I could, as soon as I could, to my own family, who had sacrificed a great deal for me. Then my allowance wasn’t large--Leslie told me she considered it about adequate for a week’s allowance of French pastries and digestion tablets--and so I wrote the rest of my friends notes. I used my best stationery that hasn’t any blue lines on it, but instead a silver “J” in the corner, and after I had written: “DEAR MR. WAKE: “I do hope that you will be very happy this Christmas and always! “Your friend, “JANE JONES.” I snipped a paragraph from Miss Sheila’s last letter, for he seemed to like hearing about her, and talking of her, and the paragraph was about him. “I am sure,” she had written, “that the Mr. Wake of whom you write so often, must be a real addition to your Florentine life. I did, very much, like his story of the wedding of Lorenzo, The Magnificent.” (He was one of the Medici)