Agnese’s dinners are not like Attilio’s (Vera’s great Neapolitan chef), but she has a way of cooking truffles in white wine and serving them in a napkin, to be eaten with fresh butter, that seems to please. Checco of the Concordia gets us the truffles from some mysterious unfailing source, when they are not to be had in the market. Agnese’s _fritta dorata_ of shrimps, cuttlefish and artichokes is fit for the King or the Pope, or Mr. Roosevelt--his sister once ate one of Agnese’s golden frys and liked it. After dinner the table was cleared, two white aprons were borrowed for Vera and me, and the big packages of envelopes were opened and laid out on the table. “We had better look them over, don’t you think?” said Athol, the wise, taking up an envelope. “She has a good handwriting--but she makes queer work of these foreign titles. His Excellency the Count and the Countess Lutzow,--really now that won’t do!” We looked at each other in despair; each had found the most egregious and impossible blunders. All the addresses except the English and Americans, it had been agreed, were to be written in French. “They must all be done over again!” I cried. “No, no, it’s not so bad as that. The English ones are all right. We must go over the whole lot, though, sort out the bad ones and redirect them. “Who is going to do it?” I groaned. That was the question. Vera’s handwriting, though distinguished, is cryptic, owing to her having learned to write German and Russian before the Latin script. Athol’s tired hand had held the pen for eight hours that day, and could not be further taxed. J.’s handwriting is a work of art, and art is long; my own is frankly bad. Thompson had thrown himself into the work of putting in the cards and sticking up the envelopes. “Handwriting is the only thing that does not improve with practice--the more a man writes, the worse he writes,” said Athol. Here the bell rang insistently; a minute later Agnese announced: “_Quella Signora bella ed alta!_” The beautiful and tall lady followed close upon her, Elinor Diederich, daughter of those gods of our youth, William and Louisa Hunt. Despair, dismay, doubt vanished before her; she blew them all away, as the fresh west wind blows vapors and fog and leaves the sun bright in the sky; that is what it is to inherit the temperament of genius. “Of course,” said Elinor, picking up one of the badly directed envelopes, “I knew this would happen. That’s the reason I came. I have had an experience of that poor thing’s work myself. I brought my pen; my handwriting’s the best thing about me.” She was hard at it, directing invitations in a handsome hand, as if that had been her calling. At ten o’clock the bell rang again; there was a parley in the anticamera; a faint odor of cigarette smoke floated into the room. “It’s Emilio,” J. exclaimed. “Show the Signorino in!”