Rome, November 28, 1907. To-day to Thanksgiving dinner at the American School. We sat down forty-one at table. Lloyd Griscom, the new Ambassador, was there, just back from a flying trip to America. It took him seven and one half days to get from Washington to Rome. He calls it the record trip. So we aren’t so far apart, are we? In the apartment below us lives Mme. Rubinstein, widow of the Russian composer--do you remember our hearing him play when he came to Boston? To-night she has a man with a stupendous baritone voice singing Russian folk songs. After a Cecilia concert lately I told her how well Sgambati had played something of her husband’s. She wept with pleasure and exclaimed, “They have forgotten him too much; it is long, long since they have given any of his glorious compositions.” At twilight we sometimes hear her softly playing her husband’s music; as she never practices and only rarely plays, her piano is a pleasure not a pest. * * * * * Rome, December 29, 1907. You will feel dear Minnie Pratt’s death very much. She was a fine soul, but she was one, I think, who would not have been very happy as an old person--we are not all “built that way.” I think of her as always young and sparkling. Bell and Pratt no longer. What will become of the twin who is left? Marion Crawford had been very devoted lately--darling old fellow, for he seems very old. He comes up to Rome a good deal and always comes to see us. He wrote a nice Christmas letter and sent me a calendar, and for luck, a ball of red string with all sorts of warnings about it; you must not throw it away, you must keep every scrap not used or light a candle with it; he really is superstitious! He does not forgive A.; he told me the other day that he never forgot the way you “flew at her like a wildcat in his mother’s defence.” Curious what things stick; he adores you for that flash of the cold greys! On Christmas Eve J. brought home vast branches of holly to put round your portrait by Villegas in the dining room. Just below we arranged and decorated a group of the family portraits on a table. This made our _festa_ pleasant and ancestral. The custom of adorning the family effigies comes to us from the ancient Romans. In the early days before the Greek gods came into Italy, they had practically only ancestor worship, in a spirit quite like that of the Japanese to-day. I read my _Outlook_ faithfully. It does not give altogether an accurate view of things at home; what publication does? It is on the right side of enthusiastic optimism, however, and that is the best reading for American exiles. * * * * *