Yesterday I walked up to Santa Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni in Laterano. I took the Scala Santa on my way to San Giovanni. Several people were going up--some priests, Italian soldiers, two or three peasants and two ladies--mother and daughter, I should think, their long black cloth dresses very much in their way evidently. I watched them for some time. I wonder what it means to them, and if they really believe that they are the steps from Jerusalem which our Saviour came down. I stayed some little time in San Giovanni. It is magnificent certainly, but there is too much gilding and mosaic and modern decoration. The view from the steps was enchanting when I came out; the air was delicious, the sun bright in a bright blue sky, and the mountains soft and purple in the distance. We had an interesting breakfast--two Benedictine monks from the great abbaye of Solesmes. They talked very moderately about their expulsion, and the wrench it was to leave the old monastery and begin life again in new surroundings. The older man especially seemed to feel it very much. I suppose he had spent all his life inside those old grey walls--reading and meditating and bound up in the interests and routine of his order. They had come to Rome to see the Pope, and consult with him about suppressing secular music in the churches, and substituting the Gregorian chants everywhere. It is a very difficult question; of course some of the music they have now in the churches is impossible. When you hear the "Méditation de Thaïs" played at some ceremony, and you think what Thaïs was, it is out of the question to admit such music in a church--on the other hand the strict Gregorian chant is very severe, particularly sung without any organ. I daresay educated musicians would prefer it, but to the ordinary assemblage, accustomed to the great peal of the organ with occasionally, in the country for instance at some festa, the national anthem or some well-known military march being played, the monotonous, old-world chant would say nothing. We shall hear them at the great festival at St. Peter's for San Gregorio. Thursday, 10th. It was warm and lovely Tuesday. Bessie, Josephine and I walked down to J.'s work-room in the Convent of St. Euphemia, somewhere beyond Trajan's Forum, before breakfast. It was too warm walking along the broad street by the Quirinal. We were thankful to take little dark narrow side streets. The "ouvroir" (work-room) was interesting--quantities of women and girls working--some of the work, fine lingerie, lace-mending, embroidery beautifully done. It is managed by sisters, under Josephine's direction, who gives a great deal of time and thought to her work. They take in any child or girl from the street, feed them and have them taught whatever they can do. It was pretty to see the little smiling faces and bright eyes as Josephine passed through the rooms.