It was to see the Tarpæian rock, where she led her country's enemies up, and where, later, traitors were hurled down, that we wished to go through the gate. Presently the keeper came, a rosy young woman, leading a little girl, who was feeling very rich over a new dolly she was dangling by its arm. We were admitted to a small garden, where pretty pink roses were in blossom, and the oranges were hanging on the trees, though the icicles were fringing the fountain not far away. On the edge of the garden, along the brow of the cliff, runs a thick wall of brown stone; we leaned over it and looked down the steep rock which one assaulting party after another tried, in old times, to scale. It was on this side that the Gauls were trying to reach the citadel at the time the geese saved the city. Do you know that for a long time, annually, a dog was crucified on the capitol, and a goose carried in triumph, because, on that occasion, the dogs failed to give the alarm and the geese did it! We looked down on the roofs and into the courts of poor houses which have huddled close about the foot of the hill, but beyond them we could look down into the Forum, where Virginia was stabbed, where Horatius hung up the spoil of the Curiatii, where the body of Julius Cæsar was burned, where the head of Cicero was cruelly exposed on the very rostrum where had often been seen the triumph of his eloquence. Opposite to us stood the Palatine Hill, a mass of crumbling palaces; a little farther off rose the mighty wall of the Coliseum, where the gladiators used to fight, and where so many Christian martyrs were thrown to the wild beasts while tens of thousands of their fellow-men, more cruel than lions, looked on, for sport. Just at the roots of the Capitoline, close by, though out of sight, was the Mamertine Prison, where St. Paul, of whom the world was not worthy, was once shut up in the dismal darkness of the dungeon. [Illustration: FAMILY OF ROMAN BEGGARS.] As we went from the garden back to the Piazza di Campidoglio, we saw something unusual was going on in the palace on the left of the capital. In the door stood a guard in resplendent array of crimson and gold lace. Looking through the arched entrance, we could see in the inner court an open carriage with driver and footman in livery of bright scarlet. Something of a crowd was gathering in the corridors. We stopped to learn what it was all about. An Italian woman answered, "La Principessa Margarita!" and an English lady close by explained that the Princess Margaret, wife of the crown prince, had come to distribute prizes to the children of the public schools. Only invited guests could be present, but the people were waiting to see her come down. So we joined the people and waited also.