“I will take you to the only place in America worth living in,” the Captain assured him. After a long cruise the skipper brought his young friend to Nantucket, where he was hospitably welcomed by the inhabitants, and settled down to learn English and teach Italian. He remained on the island for some time, in the belief that he was in the most important place in the United States, an impression first given by the skipper and fully maintained by the islanders. Somehow--and here my memory is at fault as to just the how and wherefore--Longfellow got wind of the young Italian teacher at Nantucket and managed to convince him that Boston was even more important than Nantucket. In my youth Signor Monti was one of the most prominent Italian residents of the Hub and held, if I mistake not, the post of Italian Consul. In Sicily, after the Messina earthquake, Roosevelt was given a reception by the survivors that surpassed their welcome of their own King Victor. The horses were taken from his carriage and he was drawn by a cheering populace, who hailed him with shouts of: “_Viva il nostro presidente!_” The other day two Italians were seen at Oyster Bay, scraping up handfuls of earth from Roosevelt’s grave. “What’s the idea?” asked the guard on duty. “We are returning to Italy, where Theodore Roosevelt is greatly honored, and we wish to take this sacred earth with us as a relic,” the Italians explained. On one of my visits to America, during our long residence in Rome, I had the happy idea of founding in Boston a little Italian club, now grown into an influential society, known as the Circolo Italiano. During the first few years of its existence, my mother was the leading spirit of the Circolo, in which she held the office of Honorary President. The first acting President was Count Salone Campello. We met at the houses of the members once or twice a month, and from time to time enjoyed a banquet at one of the Italian restaurants at the North End. At a certain dinner at the Lombardy Inn my mother made a great hit when she said in her speech of welcome: “Out of the egg of Columbus was hatched the American Eagle!” Novelli, the actor, who was the guest of honor, congratulated her on her beautiful enunciation. Years before Tommaso Salvini spoke to me of her rare gift of oratory; and Adelaide Ristori, who twice acted with her in private theatricals in Rome, praised her acting. It is not wonderful perhaps that my love for Italy is second only to that for my own country, for I have been privileged in knowing some of the great Italians of my time. The first decade of the new century was nearly over before I found myself in America with the prospect of remaining there. An artist’s wife, like a soldier’s, must be ready to march at the tap of the drum and follow her husband wherever his work calls him. I remember saying this to Marion Crawford, and his whimsical summing-up of the whole duty of wives: