“We should also like for General Tarditi, addressed as before, a freight car of miscellaneous supplies as follows: 400 litres of benzine to replace what we have borrowed here; 400 blankets; 200 panes of glass 60 centimetres square; 100 locks, with ordinary keys but all different; together with the following supplies for use in the hospital which will be opened within a week: 50 white varnished chairs, with 6 arm-chairs for the sick, to match; 50 wrappers, 50 pair of slippers, and 50 caps for the sick; 6 wall washstands of white earthen ware; 6 alcohol stoves which can be had from Bianchelli for about 35 _lire_ each; 400 square metres of oil-cloth of a light color, to cover ceilings of the hospital wards; 200 square metres of the same of a dark color, to cover the wainscoting; 350 square metres of linoleum of a dark color for floors. “Our telegraphic address tomorrow will be, Telegraph Office, Reggio. “We shall telephone tonight. All well. “GAY.” V ROYAL VISITORS “Not a rose!” Vera scanned the sunny south wall where Ignazio, the gardener, has trained the hardy roses. It has been his boast that we can gather at least one rose every day of the year. “What do you expect? The earthquake has turned the calendar topsy-turvy. Nena says this is the coldest winter she remembers; she must be nearly a hundred.” It was the terrace hour; Vera had dropped in to help with the flowers. It was too cold to water them, so we “pottered about,” weeded, and hunted snails. “That’s a brave flower! See, it has three blossoms; if the sun comes out tomorrow there may be more.” Vera counted the pretty trumpet-shaped blossoms of the freesia, growing in the old terra-cotta cinerary urn. “This once held the ashes of a soldier of the Pretorian Guard,” said Vera. She had given us the urn. “Do you suppose a pinch of his dust remains in it? There’s your freesia’s courage accounted for. I wonder what he was called. Herminius, Spurius Lartius? There was neither name nor date when I bought it; they must have been on the missing cover. What noble action!” Vera’s thumb followed, with the sculptor’s gesture, the lines of the Pretorian, modelled in low relief on the urn. He wears a mantle, helmet and greaves; his spear is raised against a crouching barbarian. “He must have been a fine man, our Pretorian, though this isn’t a portrait, only a type. Oh, how civilized those old Romans were! No ugly bones, no grinning skulls. The worn-out body to the clean flame, the handful of ashes to this graceful urn, that two thousand years after the Pretorian’s death serves as a flower pot.” “I believe his name was Philippus,” I said, “and that he looked like our Philippus. The regiment has returned from Messina without him. I fear something has happened to our handsome soldier.”