My dear sister Annie was usually the pioneer of our discoveries and expeditions; she was of a bolder spirit than I, and was ever on the alert for material for her painting, which was not always done with the brush. She shared in particular my love of things Etruscan. We used to fancy that we had both lived among the mysterious, beauty-loving people of Etruria some three thousand years earlier. Everything connected with them had a haunting power over us, and sometimes we used to put words to the scenes on the vases and act them out with much fidelity for our own satisfaction. Only one friend was admitted to share these archaic sympathies and diversions; if these lines ever fall under “Minnie’s” eyes, will she remember one notable night when she and Annie acted the parts of the devoted maidens, in clinging drapery and fillet-bound hair, who rescued the beautiful young warrior—myself—from the hideous fate decreed for him by the (necessarily) invisible hierophants of the sacred fane in the wardrobe—the dressing table serving for the altar upon which he was to have been sacrificed? We were all three so overcome at the conclusion of the drama that we broke down and wept in each other’s arms! “La gioventù è un fiore che non ritorna più!” But those whose youth has been fed with colour and imagination and beauty keep young in spite of the passing of years. In looking back, those stand out as the real things—the prosaic grind of existence falls away and shows itself as mere illusion. After all, what would life be without contrasts? They are the chief elements of drama. They furnish all its spice. The blackest shadows prove the existence of the brightest sun. It is the people who have nothing to wish for who are to be pitied. The very poorest can dream and hope for some lightening of their lot; and when pleasures come to them—little tiny pleasures even—they enjoy them intensely; whereas those to whom nothing has been denied find life so atrociously dull that only a constant series of fictitious excitements enables them to bear it at all. Two men I know were walking down Fifth Avenue one day and paused to admire a magnificent diamond necklace displayed in a jeweller’s window. One of them said, with a sigh, “What wouldn’t I give to be able to buy that for my wife!” The other, a poor multi-millionaire, turned to him with a snarl of envious rage: “You lucky fellow! You have something still left to wish for!” The best—in the way of mere pleasure—that some of us could desire would be to live some hours over again and see once more the pictures that filled them. There used to be a day in May when all the artists in Rome united to hold high festival out in the country, and—speaking of pictures—one such day comes back to me and claims its record. Nobody was allowed to know beforehand what the brotherhood was planning to do, but it was sure to be something very picturesque—and no wonder, considering the elements and facilities brought to bear on it!