Mary was so overcome at the piety and charity of the crowd in the warm interest they evinced, and observed so often that it must be delightful to be thus prayed for while making one’s confession, that we began to apprehend she would mount the platform herself, had not Frank timely observed to her that, in all probability, she had no reserved case on her conscience! By this time the shades of night were closing in. The lights were all extinguished. The altars stood bare and cold. The dark crowd swayed in dense masses towards the open doors. The light of the moon struggled pale and wan through the high windows where the setting sun had lately thrown a golden glow. The vast cathedral echoed to the steps of the departing crowd, and we turned towards home, more deeply impressed with the desolation expressed by the Holy Thursday ceremonies in S. Peter’s in the stripping of the altars than with many others more generally remarked. It was night before we reached our apartment in the Ripetta. Mary’s bedroom overlooked the river, and in the morning she could see S. Peter’s bathed in the rosy light of the rising sun, while flights of white sea‐gulls came up the river with the early tide to feed upon the refuse which had been thrown into the water. They came swooping down, with their glittering plumage flashing in the sunshine, and, dipping low, would snatch some dainty morsel from the swift water, and mount up, in graceful, curving flight, to repeat the same again and again. As the port was close to our house, no doubt it was an advantageous position for both the breakfast and supper of the gulls. They always returned in the evening, but at no other hour in the day. At night we could see lights in three windows of the Vatican. They were always there, and always at about the same hour they disappeared. One day, when Mary was calling on Cardinal Antonelli he asked her where we were living; and on her describing the position, and how she could see S. Peter’s and the Vatican, and specially those three windows, he told her the lights were from his own apartment. His eminence is very fond of flowers, and has a garden in Rome, in which he takes great pleasure. They were talking of flowers, and he observed to Mary that she would find very much the same flora throughout Europe, though not of course equally distributed. Mary objected that she had never seen the little common yellow primrose of our English woods, in that part of Italy. “Nevertheless, you will find we have it,” was his reply. And not long after, on our way to Viterbo, we saw its starry blossoms by the roadside, and hailed it as an old friend, dearer to our hearts than even the graceful pink cyclamen, which from the position of the petals reminds me of a pretty, blushing child with her hair all drawn back from her forehead.