One evening the French painter invited his guests to come in costume, and I remember the characteristic appearance which he made as a Bedouin, and very like one of his own equestrian pictures, while his lovely daughter, in a splendid dress of gold and coloured brocade, looked as if she had walked out of a Paul Veronese frame. I thought then of the verse in the Psalms of the description of the King’s daughter—“All glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold, brought unto the King in raiment of needlework.” She was indeed, on that evening especially, a vision of delight. No wonder she drove poor Leopold Robert to madness, and captivated the heart of her noble countryman, Paul de la Roche. With Overbeck we also made acquaintance, and the fine work on which he was then engaged, the “Life of Our Lord,” with regard to which he told us that he had changed the Protestant religion for that of Rome, as he believed none but a Catholic could paint sacred subjects. Pinelli was also still alive, and we found him at work on one of those terra-cotta groups of Roman peasantry, which were even more admirable than his drawings. He was very handsome, a typical Roman, with gold earrings in his ears, and his hair in small ringlets, such as in old days might commonly be seen among our English sailors. I think he admired himself as much as we did, and it was easy to see that he had taken himself as the model for most of the principal figures in his charming groups. Another interesting personage was the German painter Reinhardt, a man of very advanced age, who was called at that time the father of the artists. But this book is not intended as a mere catalogue. Through the kindness of a friend whose acquaintance we made at Lucca, we had ingress afforded us to many of the religious ceremonies in the Sistine and elsewhere, from which the generality of travellers were usually excluded, and letters of introduction also formed passports to the palaces of the chief Roman nobility, so that the Carnival that year was one continued round of gaiety and festivity for me and mine. [Sidenote: LEAVE ROME FOR NAPLES] After some delightful Spring days passed in the neighbourhood with the Boddingtons, at Tivoli and Albano, we travelled to Naples, where those dear friends soon rejoined us. Here we took up our abode, in a very pretty apartment on the ground floor of the Palazzo Calabritti, just opposite the entrance to the delightful gardens of the Villa Reale. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIV SUMMER AT NAPLES