We started home rather sooner than we had intended, as the sky was getting blacker, and a few drops already falling. We were in an open automobile, and should have been half drowned going home if it had begun to rain hard. We went back at a frightful pace. If I found the coming up terrifying you can imagine what the descent was, flying around the corners, and seeing the steep road zigzagging far down below us. I heard smothered exclamations ("Oh, mon petit Camillo, pas si vite") occasionally from Bessie, and I think Josephine was saying her prayers--however we did get home without any accident or "panne" of any kind, and Ruspoli assured us he had _crawled_ out of consideration for us. This morning Josephine and I have been out to the new Benedictine Monastery of St. Anselmo, which stands high on a hill overlooking the Tiber. She had business with the Director, so I went into the chapel which is fine (quite modern with splendid marbles) and walked about a little in the garden (they wouldn't let me go far). We went afterward into the Villa Malta. There is an extraordinary view through the key-hole of the door--one looks straight down a long, narrow avenue with high trees on each side, to St. Peter's--a great blue dome at the end. We couldn't make out at first what the old woman meant who opened the door for us, she wouldn't let us come in, but pointed to the key-hole, mumbling something we couldn't understand. At last we heard "veduta" (view), and divined what she wanted us to do. It was most curious. The gardens are lovely still, green, cool. We went over the house, but there is nothing particularly interesting--portraits of all the "Grands Maîtres de l'Ordre de Malte." It was so lovely that we didn't want to come home, so we drove out as far at St. Paul's Fuori le Mura, and walked around the church to the front where they are making a splendid portico--all marble and mosaic. I should have liked it better without the mosaic--merely the fine granite and marble columns. Tuesday, April 12th.