with a certain animation to the two ecclesiastics who walked on each side of him. He stopped every now and then, going on with his conversation and using his hands freely. He was talking all the time, the others listening with much deference. The suite seemed to consist of three or four priests and two servants. I didn't see either a Suisse or Garde-Noble, but they may have been following at a distance. Our glimpse of him was fleeting, as he turned into a side alley before he got up to our window--still it was enough to realize his life--think of never going outside those walls, walking day after day in those same alleys, cut off from all the outside world and living his life in the stillness and monotony of the Vatican. However it certainly doesn't react in any way upon his intellect. They say he is just as keen and well up in everything as when he was Bishop of Perugia, and that his indomitable will will carry him through. We thanked our old custode very warmly (and in many ways) for having brought us to the window, and also said good-bye to him, as this of course was our last visit to the Vatican. He begged us to come back, but it must be soon, or _he_ wouldn't be there, as he was as old as the Pope. When we got to the hotel we found Monsignor English in the salon with the Pope's photograph, very well framed with a gilt shield with the Papal arms on the top. It is exactly like him, sitting very straight in his chair, his hand lifted a little just as if he were speaking, and the other hand and arm resting on the arm of the chair. He is dressed in his white robes, red cape and embroidered stole, just as we saw him; and his little white cap on his head. He has written himself a few words in Latin, of which this is a free translation: "The woman who fears God, makes her own reputation. Her husband was celebrated in his country when he sat with the Senators of the land." I am so pleased to have the photograph--so many people told me I should never get it, that the Pope rarely gave his picture to anybody and never signed one. Monsignor English, too, was much pleased, as he had undertaken the whole thing. He said again that the Pope was glad to have seen W., found him so moderate, and yet very decided, too, about what the church mustn't do. Leo XIII. has an awfully difficult part to play--the ultra-Catholics disapprove absolutely his line--can't understand any concession or compromise with Republican France, and yet there are very good religious people on the liberal side, and he, as Head of the Church, must think about all his children, and try to conciliate, not alienate. It is wonderful that that old man sitting up there by himself at the top of the Vatican can think out all those perplexed questions and arrive at a solution. They say he works it all out himself--rarely asks advice. I daresay it wouldn't help him if he did, for of course there are divisions, too, in the clerical party of Rome, even among the Cardinals,