breaking bluntly into the centre of the ring, and towards the right hand the softer Alban heights with their lakes hidden in the hollows, and the sunshine falling full upon their crest of towns. When they had mounted the steep ascent to Frascati, it was still more wonderful to look back and see the sunset arranging itself over that great Campagna, falling into broad radiant bands of colour with inconceivable tints and shadings, betraying in a sudden flash the distant sea, and shining all misty and golden over the dwarfed dome of St. Peter’s, which rose up by itself upon the distant plain with a wonderful insignificance of grandeur--all Rome around being blotted into oblivion. That would have been a sight to linger over had not Meredith been weary and worn out, and eager to get to his journey’s end. “You will see it often enough,” he said, with a little petulance; “neither the sunset nor St. Peter’s can run away:” for it was to himself a sufficiently familiar sight. They went in accordingly to a large house, which, a little to the disappointment of Colin, was just as square and ugly as anything he could have found at home, though it stood all the days and nights gazing with many eyes over that Campagna which looked like a thing to dream over for ever. It was the third storey of this house--- the upper floor--to which Meredith and his sister directed their steps; Colin and Lauderdale following them--not without a little expectation, natural enough under the circumstances. It was cold, and they were tired, though not so much as the invalid; and they looked for a bright fire, a comfortable room, and a good meal--with a little curiosity, it is true, about the manner of it, but none as to the blazing hearth and spread board, and all the other items indispensable to comfort, according to English ideas. The room, when they got admittance, was very large, and full of windows, letting in a flood of light, which, as the sunshine was now too low to enter, was cold light--white, colourless, and chilling. Not a vestige of carpet was on the tiled floor, except before the fire-place, where a square piece of a curious coarse fabric and wonderful pattern had been laid down. A few logs were burning on the wide hearth, and close by was a little stack of wood intended to replenish the fire. The great desert room contained a world of tables and hard uncushioned chairs, but the tired travellers looked in vain for the spread board which had pleased their imagination. If Colin had thought the house too like an ordinary ugly English house outside to satisfy him, he found this abundantly made up for now by the interior, so unlike anything English; for the walls were painted with a brilliant landscape set in a frame of still more brilliant scarlet curtains, which the simple-minded artist had looped across his sky without any hesitation; and underneath this gorgeous bit of fresco was set a table against the wall, upon which were spread out a humble store