"No," she persisted, "sometimes
it makes them in the winter," but I had to come away through the reeking
streets without one.
When it rains, it rains easily in Rome. But the weather was divine the
evening I looked one of my latest looks down on the Spanish Steps. The
sun had sunk rather wanly beyond the city, but a cheerful light of
electrics shone up at me from the Via dei Condotti. I stood and thought
of as much as I could summon from the past, and I was strongest, I do
not know why, with the persecutions of the early Christians. Presently a
smell of dinner came from the hotels around and the houses below, and I
was reminded to go home to my own _table d'hote._ My one-legged beggar
seemed to have gone to his, and I escaped him; but I was intercepted by
the sight of an old woman asleep over her store of matches. She was not
wakened by the fall of my ten-centime piece in her tray, but the boy
drowsing beside her roused himself, and roused her to the dreamy
expression of a gratitude quite out of scale with my alms.
V
AN EFFORT TO BE HONEST WITH ANTIQUITY
My visit to the Roman Forum when the Genius Loci verified to my
ignorance and the intelligence of my companions the well-conjectured
site of the Temple of Jupiter Stator was not the first nor yet the
second visit I had paid the place.
