We passed on to Italy. Soon after my arrival in Florence I was asked to speak on suffrage at the _Circolo Filologico_, one of the favorite halls of the city. The attendance was very large. I made my argument in French, and when it was ended a dear old-fashioned conservative in the gallery stood up to speak, and told off all the counter pleas with which suffragists are familiar,--the loss of womanly grace, the neglect of house and family, etc. When he had finished speaking a charming Italian matron, still young and handsome, sprang forward and took me by the hand, saying, "I feel to take the hand of this sister from America." Cordial applause followed this and I was glad to hear my new friend respond with much grace to our crabbed opponent in the gallery. The sympathy of the audience was evidently with us. A morning visit to the Princess Belgioiosa may deserve a passing mention. This lady was originally Princess Ghika, of a noble Roumanian family. She had married a Russian--Count Murherstsky. I never knew the origin of the Italian title. My dear friend, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, went with me to the princess's villa, which was at some distance from the city proper. Although the winter was well begun she received us in a room without fire. She was wrapped in furs from head to foot while we shivered with cold. She appeared to be about sixty years of age, and showed no traces of the beauty which I had seen in a portrait of her taken in her youth. She spoke English fluently, but with idioms derived from other languages, in some of which I should have understood her more easily than in my own. Our first winter abroad was passed in Rome, which I now saw for the first time as the capital of a united Italy. The king, "_Il Re Galantuomo_," was personally popular with all save the partisans of the Pope's temporal dominion. I met him more than once driving on Monte Pinciano. He was of large stature, with a countenance whose extreme plainness was redeemed by an expression of candor and of good humor. In the course of this winter Victor Emmanuel died. The marks of public grief at this event were unmistakable. The ransomed land mourned its sovereign as with one heart. I recall vividly the features of the king's funeral procession, which was resplendent with wreaths and banners sent from every part of Italy. The monarch's remains were borne in a crimson coach of state, drawn by six horses. His own favorite war-horse followed, veiled in crape. Nobles and servants of noble houses walked before and after the coach in brilliant costumes, bareheaded, carrying in their hands lighted torches of wax. I stood to see this wonderful sight with my dear friend Sarah Clarke, at a window of her apartment opposite to the Barberini Palaces. As the cortége swept by I dropped my tribute of flowers.