When we had been living in Rome four years my mother resolved to come out and pass a winter with us. One of the things that drew her to Italy was the wish to see her sister Louisa again. She had contemplated this visit for some time, but although she was in her seventy-ninth year, found it so hard to break away from the cares and responsibilities of public life that I crossed the ocean to help her get away. For one of the anticipated joys she had delayed too long, alas! In the August of 1898, my aunt, who had long been drooping, faded quietly out of life. My letters to my brother and sisters give glimpses of whom and what my mother saw in that Rome which in her youth she had apostrophized as “The City of my Love!” Rome, December 26, 1898. Well, my dears, we had a merry Christmas. In the afternoon we drove to the Pincio, where we sunned ourselves, then to the Odescalchi, where we enjoyed the Christmas tree Daisy Chanler had prepared for her own and the Crawford children. It was Mama’s first visit; it seemed best that it was made on this occasion, when youth was to the fore in force. The four Crawford angels, and Daisy’s three sported and enjoyed themselves. In the evening young Richard Norton, son of Charles Eliot Norton, came to dine with his bride, a daughter of Professor White of Harvard. We had a real English plum pudding on fire with holly on the top. We keep up our exercise faithfully. If it is rainy we play ball, “I put my Ugly Mug In”, and “The Barberry Bush.” Mama works at her desk just as if she were at home and is hard at it writing her “Reminiscences.” I don’t believe she could ever have found time to write them in Boston. * * * * *