Those days at Taormina slipped by as a chaplet of odd and even pearls slips between the fingers. Now and then it poured, and we would come home drenched to the skin, glad for once of the steam-heater to dry our wet garments. Those rainy days were the uneven pearls; the others were each rounded from dawn to dark to a sphere of perfect beauty. Whether Etna was all visible, or all hidden, or half revealed, we always felt the great presence, were never for one moment out of its influence. “Hullo! this must be Mr. Wood’s studio,” said Patsy, pointing to a picturesque sign, “why not go in?” Mr. Wood lives in a dignified old palazzo. We were made welcome, and spent a delightful afternoon, poring over a portfolio of water-colors; pictures of Etna in its countless moods, at every hour of the day, from a hundred points of view. “No work since the earthquake,” sighed the painter. “That’s not what they say at camp.” “Well, no work of my own; there has been too much to do!” As we were having tea, Mr. Bowdoin happened in; later, several English and American Taorminians dropped in. This was one of the colony’s social centres. “All of us here,” said Mr. Wood, “had a narrow escape. We had arranged to go to Messina on the 27th of December, spend the night and hear Madame Butterfly. At the last minute the manager changed the opera to Aida; we had all heard Aida so often that we gave up going. The hotel where we would have stayed was destroyed; all the opera singers perished!” We tried to talk of other things, a dozen subjects were started--in vain, it was impossible to get away from that all-absorbing topic, the earthquake. One and another told their experiences, letters were read, extracts from journals. With our new friends, we lived over again those dreadful days, when we in Rome were torn with anxiety about them, because no word came from Taormina.