“Those afflictions that are sent by the Padre Eterno can best be assuaged by the Church,” he grumbled, as he put Athol’s fine English hold-all on the box beside him. Even the strawberry roan was out of spirits and took ten minutes longer than usual between the palace and the station. “What has his Excellency to do with such matters?” Napoleone flung the words over his shoulder. “I tell you frankly, Signora mia, his life is worth more than all the Sicilians put together. It is a pity the island of Sicily did not sink beneath the sea and remain there twenty minutes, long enough to drown all the inhabitants. It would have been a good thing for Italy, magari, and for the rest of the world!” Wilfred Thompson, who was at the station when we arrived, introduced Weston Flint, the cashier. Mr. Flint wore a leather money bag over his shoulder. “Ask for the special,” said Flint, as he wrote our names down on a list; “the Government has put a train at the Ambassador’s disposal; they treat us handsomely, you see.” “That young man came to Rome to study archeology,” said the Roman American, who was going with us. “He will learn more about ruins and excavation in the next few days than he could have learned at school in a lifetime.” A cab drove up with three neat, plainly dressed, young girls. “The American nurses, God bless them!” said the Roman American. “There come the English nurses; and there’s Robert Hale, the painter--why have they gone in so heavily for artistic talent?” Then answering his own question: “Because artists are the hardest working people in the world, and the most generous; they always do more than their share of good work; rich people give their money, they give themselves!” Just then the Ambassador and Mrs. Griscom came up in their motor and we all got on board the train. The journey to Civitavecchia was all too short; we hardly found time to look from the window and were only half conscious of passing the ancient Temple of Minerva Medica, or Ponte Galera, the picturesque, fever-stricken, abandoned town hung in its green shroud of ivy. The artists missed nothing of the beauty of the trip (their search for beauty is as unconscious as breathing); the rest of us had to be forcibly wrenched from the discussion of medicated gauze and flannel bandages when a turn of the road brought a wonderful view before us,--the campagna swimming in an amethyst haze, the blue clear-cut lines of the Alban hills, and far off, a fainter blue stain against the sky, Monte Circeo, home of Circe, daughter of the sun. These things the sons of Mary saw, while the sons of Martha talked of ways and means.