Mrs. Chicken Merchant was a large woman--very stout, very fair, very cautious of her thoughts and her conduct, thoroughly sympathetic and well-meaning. Before leaving her native town, she told me, she had inaugurated a small library, the funds for which she had helped collect. Occasionally she was buying engravings of famous historic buildings, such as the Colosseum and the Temple of Vesta, which would eventually grace the walls of the library. She and her husband felt that they were educating themselves; and that they would return better citizens, more useful to their country, for this exploration of the ancient world. They had been going each day, morning and afternoon, to some lecture or ancient ruin; and after I came they would seek me out of an evening and tell me what they had seen. I took great satisfaction in this, because I really liked them for their naïve point of view and their thoroughly kindly and whole-hearted interest in life. It flattered me to think that I was so acceptable to them and that we should get along so well together. Frequently they invited me to their table to dinner. On these occasions my friend would open a bottle of wine, concerning which he had learned something since he had come abroad. It was Mr. and Mrs. Chicken Merchant who gave me a full description of the different Roman lecturers, their respective merits, their prices, and what they had to show. They had already been to the Forum, the Palatine, the Colosseum and the House of Nero, St. Peter’s, the Castle of St. Angelo, the Appian Way, the Catacombs and the Villa Frascati. They were just going to the Villa d’Este and to Ostia, the old seaport at the mouth of the Tiber. They were at great pains to get me to join the companies of Signor Tanni who, they were convinced, was the best of them all. “He tells you something. He makes you see it just as it was. By George! when we were in the Colosseum you could just fairly see the lions marching out of those doors; and that House of Nero, as he tells about it, is one of the most wonderful things in the world.”