It happened in Rome; in our apartment on the Piazza di Spagna. We had a visit from a Countess. She was heralded by her visiting-card, on which blazed a coronet--an awe-inspiring visiting-card, imposing enough to reduce to the ground the most blatant democrat. What did the unknown Countess want? we asked each other with palpitating hearts. Had she come to invite us to visit her ancestral castle in the Sabine Hills? Was she a messenger from the Queen of Italy summoning us to an audience in the Quirinal Palace? What did this high-toned lady want? My wife faced the music alone. She entered the room, and saw a shabbily dressed old lady rambling about amongst the furniture. "Ah!" exclaimed the Countess; "please excuse me the liberty of admiring your old Italian furniture; it is very fine indeed. I am so fond of it. I used to have my rooms full of it, but we sold it all to dealers. They gave us a good price for it. We are reduced in circumstances now, and I have called to ask if you would buy some jam from me. I make it myself, and have good clients among the English and American residents. I charge 3.50 lire for a jar, and allow 50 centimes for the empty jar if returned when I call again." She produced some glass jars of jam and honey from a basket she carried under her cloak. Refined-looking jars; artistically labelled jars, assuring the purchaser that the jam within was made under perfect hygienic conditions. The wording of the labels was printed in accurate English; but the Countess could not speak English, not a broken sentence of it could she utter. The conversation was carried on in French. We bought a jar of jam and a jar of honey, and are looking hopefully for the return of the 50 centimes on the empty jars when next she calls on business intent. It is no hedgerow jam, no common cottage mixture of blackberry and apple she offered us, but highly aristocratic peach jam from choicest fruits grown in coroneted orchards. And the honey she offered was superior honey; not the produce of old-fashioned garden flowers and wild heather from the hills--anybody breeds that plebeian honey. Her bees were classic to the core, lived in the garden of Hesperides, and fed only on orange-blossoms and acacia. No honey had an aroma equal to hers. Dear, good old soul! There was lots of fine metal in her character; she was a piece of rare old silver plate with hall-mark clearly impressed on it, but in somewhat battered and bruised condition. She had been roughly handled in the hard-hammering world. She had lost everything but manners and breeding. She could sell jam with the grace and dignity of a Queen bestowing royal favours on a subject. She was striving to maintain herself honourably in the sight of all men, and she would die in the last ditch rather than beg. Her pluck lured her on to the winning-post.