feet deep the guests were completely covered; but the shower continued until the smothering weight of them ended all life.--An ingenious but improbable story. No one of Signor Tanni’s wide-mouthed company seemed to question whether this was plausible or not; and one American standing next to me exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be switched!” My doubting mind set to work to figure out how I could have overcome this difficulty if I had been in the room; and in my mind I had all the associated guests busy tramping down rose leaves in order to make the quantity required as large as possible. My idea was that I could tire Nero out on this rose-leaf proposition. The picture of these noble Romans feverishly trampling down the fall of rose leaves cheered me greatly. After my first excursion with Signor Tanni I decided to take his whole course; and followed dutifully along behind him, listening to his interesting and good-natured disquisitions, during many delightful mornings and afternoons in the Forum, on the Palatine, in the Catacombs, on the Appian Way and in the Villas at Frascati and Tivoli! I shall never forget how clearly and succinctly the crude early beginnings and characteristics of Christianity came home to me as I walked in the Catacombs and saw the wretched little graves hidden away in order that they might not be desecrated, and the underground churches where converts might worship free from molestation and persecution. On the Palatine the fact that almost endless palaces were built one on top of the other, the old palace leveled by means of the sledge and the crowbar and the new one erected upon the smoothed-over space, is easily demonstrated. They find the remains of different ruins in different layers as they dig down, coming eventually to the early sanctuaries of the kings and the federated tribes. It is far more interesting to walk through these old ruins and underground chambers accompanied by some one who loves them, and who is interested in them, and who by fees to the state servitors has smoothed the way, so that the ancient forgotten chambers are properly lighted for you, than it is to go alone. And to have a friendly human voice expatiating on the probable arrangement of the ancient culinary department and how it was all furnished, is worth while. I know that the wonder and interest of the series of immense, dark rooms which were once the palace of Nero, and formerly were exposed to the light of day, before the dust and incrustation of centuries had been heaped upon them, but which now underlie a hill covered by trees and grass, came upon me with great force because of these human explanations; and the room in which, in loneliness and darkness for centuries stood the magnificent group of Laocoon and the porphyry vase now in the Vatican, until some adventuring students happened to put a foot through a hole, thrilled me as though I had come upon them myself. Until one goes in this way