“Madama Terry is the most _simpatica_ American I know!” I once heard Rudolpho Lanciani, the archeologist exclaim. Most people agreed with him. Her popularity was deserved, for her kindness was unfailing, [Illustration: FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD At the age of twenty-three] her generosity unstinted. She was the most romantic of women, always beautiful, always surrounded by admirers! Her marriage to Thomas Crawford, the sculptor, in 1846 carried her to Rome, a young bride; from this time Rome was her home. The four Crawford children were all more Italian than American. After Uncle Crawford’s death in 1857, my aunt married Luther Terry, an American painter also settled in Rome. There are two children of this marriage, Margaret (Mrs. Winthrop Chanler) and Arthur Terry. “Every year I break off a bit of my heart and give it away!” my aunt said to me sadly at the end of a season that had brought several near relatives and friends to Rome. That was the fly in her ointment--the brilliant circle at the Odescalchi was inevitably a shifting one--she missed the intimacy of old friends and relatives; this was part of the price of exile. She was a faithful correspondent, writing long letters to her children and sisters, “holding the family together” by her system of “letter exchange.” They all wrote freely and frequently to her, and she was tireless in passing on the letters from one to another. Her two married Crawford daughters, Annie, Baroness Erich von Rabé and Mimoli, Mrs. Hugh Fraser, came that winter to visit the Odescalchi. Annie was a unique person, witty, brilliant, and extraordinarily gifted. Her brother Marion writes of her at this time, “I saw Annie yesterday, and find her much changed--cordial and affectionate, but nervous and excitable. She has become much thinner, or I should say slimmer, for her figure is really almost absolute perfection. She was here for a few days with her really magnificent children, all affection and smiles, and has now gone back to her wolves and her Poles and her fine trees at Lesnian.” The Crawfords were all artistic like their father and romantic like their mother. On the ninth of January of this year, 1878, Victor Emmanuel the Liberator died. I saw his strong face for the last time as he lay in state at the Quirinal. The _cappella ardente_ was ablaze with candles, the air was heavy with the smell of incense and flowers. The dead king was dressed in uniform with the crown and scepter at his feet. Two Capuchin monks knelt beside him, telling their beads. From early morning till late night a silent grief-stricken crowd surged though the chapel.