“It’s the coldest season we have ever known in Italy,” Lombardi remarked. We all shivered in the piercing gust that came from the open door as a shambling uncouth white puppy tumbled, capering with joy, into the room. He was a foundling from the campagna, lost, strayed or stolen from his sheep-dog kin, and adopted by Vera. His rough ugliness emphasized the refinement of the violet-scented villa where a crumpled roseleaf would have hurt. As we drank our coffee, the dog nuzzling Vera’s satin slipper with little sounds of joy, a servant brought in the evening papers and handed them to Lombardi--I can see him now standing before the fire, unfolding the Tribuna and glancing at the headlines; I can smell the damp printer’s ink. “Any news?” asked Vera. “There has been an earthquake in Calabria.” The Englishman nodded; he had heard it, he always heard the news before the rest of us! “Another earthquake! Not a bad one?” I cried. “The paper naturally makes the most of it, though it does not seem to have done much damage,” Athol reassured us. “Poor people, how they have suffered!” Vera sighed comfortably. After a few more comments the subject was dropped and we began again to abuse the powers that be for the shocking breaches that have been made in the ancient walls of Rome. Bits of our talk come back to me now as from an immeasurable distance. It is as if that conversation over the fire in Vera’s library had taken place in another planet during another existence. “The wall that Belisarius defended fifteen hundred years ago against the Goths without the gates has been demolished by the Goths within the gates!” exclaimed Athol. “It’s a world’s crime,” I said, “because Rome belongs to the world; it’s just as much ours as the Italians’!” “Ah! so you like to think!” said the only Italian present, indulgently. “I have heard you say it yourself, Lombardi, when you wanted something of us outlanders,” Athol came to my rescue. “Remember, the petition to have the streets put through was got up by an Englishman, who owned property near by that he thought would be improved,” Vera defended.