I wasn't sorry to get back to the hotel and rest a little before starting again this afternoon. I liked walking through the little old crooked streets--they were not empty, there were people in all of them, but decidedly of the poorer classes. They are a naturally polite, sympathetic race--always smiling if you ask anything and always moving to one side to let you pass--unlike the stolid German who calmly and massively takes the middle of the pavement and never dreams of moving to one side, or considering anybody else. I have just been jostled by two stout specimens of the touring Vaterland--they are anything but good types. If they didn't understand the language in which Madame Hubert expressed her opinion I think the tone said something to them, for one man muttered a sort of excuse. If I can keep my eyes open long enough I will finish this letter to-night. We have had a lovely afternoon--didn't get back until 8.30 and have only just come upstairs from dinner. We started a little after three, in a light victoria and a capital pair of small strong post-horses who went at a good, steady, quick trot. The drive is a short hour and a half--not very interesting country--flat rice fields and the same numerous little canals one sees all over Lombardy. Monza is quite a large town--looks very old and Italian. The Cathedral was begun in the sixth century, but rebuilt in the fourteenth. There are all sorts of curious frescoes and relics. We saw, of course, the iron crown which all Austrian Emperors are supposed to wear at their coronation. The last two to wear it were Napoleon and Ferdinand I. It is really a large gold circle with a smaller iron one inside, and studded with precious stones--very heavy. It was shown to us with much pomp, lighted tapers, and a priest in his vestments. He told us the iron band inside was made out of a nail that had been taken from the Saviour's cross. He handled it very reverently, and would hardly let me lift it to see how heavy it was. He showed us many curious things, among others a fan of Queen Theodolinda's, made in the 6th century. It was small, made in leather, and really not too faded, though one had to look closely and with the eyes of faith to see the roses the old priest pointed out.