When I look out in the morning she is likely to be sitting outside the gate as if awaiting something to transpire that would be worthy of observation, attention, or participation. When I return in the middle of the day and again in the evening and when Sundays or other times I am in my rooms for a protracted period, I see her ever busily engaged in doing nothing. The only imaginative or emotional activity that I have ever witnessed her display is that sometimes I find her humming and she always smiles and greets me most affably. At times I see other children make a visit to her, but it is obviously a ceremonious one, for there are no shrieks or yells, no tumbling or rolling, no scampering or chattering, none of that display of physical vitality and joy of living that lambs or colts or calves or even puppies or kittens make. They are like a miniature group of Giacondas, older than the rocks upon which they sit, who have tasted all the joys to satiety. The doll that I gave her has apparently been put away, not at all unlikely with a scapular or holy beads. At least, I have never seen her with it in her arms since the day she received it. There is no sign of miniature wheelbarrow or shovel or sandpile, no little wooden geegee, no bicycle or miniature locomotive, no blocks or other material from which to construct a castle or a kitchen, no indication whatsoever that she attempts to portray any of the vagrant thoughts or fleeting fancies that arise in her budding mind. When I go on a Sunday to the little villages in the Campagna or in the Castelli Romani to which the proletariat repair with their families in _villeggiatura_, I see hundreds of children, but never once have I seen any of them playing, nor are they noisy and boisterous. If they are clamorous and restless, it is for food or for appeasement of some other physical need. Even the little boys do not play in the streets. Their one source of amusement is for a number of them to gather around a pile of small stones used for repair of the road and to divert themselves by hurling them at one another when a carriage or an automobile is not passing, at which time they concentrate their efforts on attempts to slay the occupants of these vehicles with the deadly missiles at hand.