There is a short season in which a villa within the walls of old Rome realizes all that is positive ecstasy in the life of Italy. This season begins usually towards the end of February, and continues through the month of March. This interval--which in less favored lands is dedicated to storms of rain and sleet, east winds and equinoctial gales, tumbling chimney-pots and bronchitis--is here signalized by all that Spring, in its most voluptuous abundance, can pour forth. Vegetation comes out, not with the laggard step of northern climes,--slow, cautious, and distrustful,--but bursting at once from bud to blossom, as though impatient for the fresh air of life and the warm rays of the sun. The very atmosphere laughs and trembles with vitality. From the panting lizard on the urn to the myriad of insects on the grass, it is life everywhere; and over all sweeps the delicious odor of the verbena and the violet, almost overpowering with perfume, so that one feels, in such a land, the highest ecstasy of existence is that same dreamy state begotten of impressions derived from blended sense, where tone and tint and odor mingle almost into one. Perhaps the loveliest spot of Rome in this loveliest of seasons was the Villa Altieri. It stood on a slope of the Pincian, defended from north and east, and looking eastward over the Campagna towards the hills of Albano. A thick ilex grove, too thick and dark for Italian, though perfect to English taste, surrounded the house, offering alleys of shade that even the noonday's sun found impenetrable; while beneath the slope, and under shelter of the hill, lay a delicious garden, memorable by a fountain designed by Thorwaldsen, where four Naiades splash the water at each other under the fall of a cataract,--this being the costly caprice of the Cardinal Altieri, to complete which he had to conduct the water from the Lake of Albano. Unlike most Italian gardens, the plants and shrubs were not merely those of the south, but all that the culture of Holland and England could contribute to fragrance and color were also there, and the gorgeous tulips of the Hague, the golden ranunculus and crimson carnation, which attain their highest beauty in moister climates, here were varied with chrysanthemums and camellias. Gorgeous creepers trailed from tree to tree or gracefully trained themselves around the marble groups, and clusters of orange-trees, glittering with golden fruit, relieved in their darker green the almost too glaring brilliancy of color.