To-day sunshine and shower alternated. Minna noticed none of it as she walked more slowly than usual towards her studio. On her way thither she had occasion to walk along a certain street, and, happening to glance upwards as she did so, she found herself opposite the door of a well-known _pensione_ affected by some of the most highly respectable English and American visitors. A thought struck her: ‘I could at any rate take a room there till I have been able to look about me, and see what is best to be done.’ She climbed the stairs forthwith and rang the bell, resolved to settle the matter at once, so that on her return she could tell Signora Vincenzini in a firm and decided manner of her resolve. Further disappointment awaited her. Mrs. Cartwright, the very comfortable, self-satisfied-looking matron who conducted the _pensione_, received her with calm and dignified indifference, an indifference born partly of the fact that her house was full, partly perhaps of the other fact that she knew Minna well by name and sight, and had heard her give utterance to views about _pensioni_ and boarding-houses which were far from complimentary to such establishments. At any rate, as soon as she heard what Mrs. Hastings wanted--a large good room with the sun--she smiled a lofty smile, folded her hands, and regretted, with every appearance of satisfaction, that it was quite out of her power to oblige her with anything of the kind. She had no such room free--no prospect of having such a room. Minna wished her good-morning and went away with an outwardly unruffled mien. She was not going to give way to the fit of exasperated ill-humour which she felt was coming over her before that insolent creature--not she. Within she was full of vexation. Rome, as she knew, was ill-supplied with comfortable boarding-houses. She did not wish to go to a hotel. It was altogether very annoying. ‘I wish I had never gone in,’ she muttered to herself with much irritation. ‘No room for me indeed! The instant I saw her I felt what a mistake I had made. I don’t know how I came to forget for a moment that it would be impossible for me to live, even for a week, in a _pensione_ like that, filled with English and Americans “doing” Rome. Heavens! doesn’t one know what they are? Their one idea how to rush round it with the least possible expenditure of time and money--the day’s sightseeing a duty to be done; then the blessed relief of evening--the comfort of being able to forget the statues and the ruins and the churches, while they grumble at their ease over the badness of the dinner, and compare the prices of things at all the different places they have ever stayed at in their lives. Such memories they have for things of that kind, and for the pastry-cooks, and the jewellers and the milliners, and for the liveries of the Queen’s servants when she drives out, and for nothing else! Bah! I have had a lucky escape!’