This Roman kitchen was as little as possible like the New England kitchen. Closets and pantries there were none; the single stone walls did not admit of them. Two large cases of covered shelves took their place. Instead of the trim range with its one fire-place, was a row of five little furnaces, over each of which a dish could be set. A sheet-iron screen extended out over these, like the hood of a chaise. All the side of the chimney, where it extended into the room, shone with bright copper and tin cooking vessels, hanging in rows. Underneath were two baskets, one with charcoal, another with _carbonella_—the charred little twigs from the baker’s furnaces, that can be kindled at a lamp. One of the furnaces still had a glow of coals within it, and near by was the feather fan that had been used to kindle and keep it bright. The brick floor was as clean as sprinkling and sweeping could make it. They never wash a floor in Rome, and only the fine marbles and mosaics ever get anything better than that sprinkling and sweeping. The one window looked across the court to the Agostinian convent attached to Sant’ Antonino, and to the little belfry with the two bells that never could be made to strike the right number of times, and into the garden of the _frati_, where rows of well-kept vegetables were drinking in the sun as if it were wine. This kitchen was quite deserted, except for the cat, who was standing, with a very mild and innocent expression of countenance, close to the closed door of a cupboard where meat was kept. She glanced calmly at the Signora, and walked away slowly and with dignity. “Where is Annunciata, Signor Abate?” inquired the Signora. The cat turned and mewed with great politeness, but in an interrogative tone, as who should say, “I beg your pardon?” And then a splashing and bubbling of water from without reminded the _padrona_ that her handmaiden was washing that day—was “at the fountain,” as they express it. “Why should I not go down for once and see how it seems there?” she thought. “After all, this girl is dependent on me, lives with me, serves me in everything, is at my call night and day, and I do not touch her life except at certain points—the table, the cleanliness and order of the house, and the errands she does for me outside. I don’t know much about her, after all.”