Frank used to tell Mary he never knew any one so greedy of indulgences as she was. She always looked out for these short prayers; she never went to S. Peter’s without kneeling, as she passed the priests in their confessionals, to receive the little tap from the long wand they have in front of the confessional, and to the receiving of which an indulgence is attached. He used to tell her laughingly that he did not understand how she had the face to disturb the priest saying his Office, and oblige him to lift his eyes from his Breviary, and detach the long stick as she knelt a yard or two distant. We have seen her unblushingly obtain three raps in succession with all the devotion possible; and then, when she and I were looking another way, Frank would strive against his natural British undemonstrativeness, and kneel for the little blow, getting up again with a shy blush. Mary and I never took any notice. We knew that the small act of humility, which, among the childlike Italians, came almost as a matter of course, cost him far more than it did us, and therefore had more merit. The Romans have a harmless superstition that if you are leaving Rome, and are anxious to return, you will not fail to do so if you deposit some small coin in a safe place. I had done so the last time I had been there; and, sure enough, I was back again to claim my money. But though I could remember the part of the church beneath the statue of S. Juliana where I had dropt it into a crevice, I never could find it again. However, that did not matter, since the charm had worked successfully. A draught of the water from the fountain of Trevi is said to have the same effect. I drank a cupful once in pure jest, and have been to Rome four times since; but something more powerful than the hidden half‐pence or the fountain of Trevi has lured me back again. There is, I believe, no spot in the world where everybody gets to feel so at home as in Rome, outside the land of their birth and the roof that shelters all their domestic affections.