and barred, was a nuisance, especially when one
was weary with the cares of life and householding,
and wanted to get to bed. After a quarter
or two, I told the collector to call again. I told
the water-rates to wait, the fire-escape not to
bother: I .resisted the sweeps until soot fell
down and set fire to the chimney; when men
came to the door with papers, I looked about
for my policeman, albeit I took no pride in him
now, for he had been down my area and tasted
of my legs of mutton—the monster of ingratitude
was fond of the knuckle; when my tree
shed its leaves and littered the garden with its
sere and yellow foliage, which rotted in the
rain, and exhaled noxious vapours, I had
thought of laying the axe at its roots. When
my door required a new patent lock that cost
eighteen shillings, I had no longer any satisfaction
in being its sole proprietor; when my roof
began to have a tile off regularly every month,
my love turned to loathing. As to drawing
cheques, there are people who say that getting a
cheque out of me is like getting blood out of a
stone. I have found that the Queen's taxes in
the aggregate are by no means inconsiderable;
that the rates are a burden not to be borne
tamely. You should hear me at the rate-
payers' meetings denouncing the vestry and the
workhouse committee! And what is the last
thing? They have abolished toll-gates in our
parish, and assessed me at sixpence in the pound
to pay for the roads. It is monstrous. Really,
with such burdens and responsibilities, a
respectable householder finds it difficult to make
both ends meet. I have come to the conclusion
that housekeeping is——"Please, sir, the
drains is stopped up again, and the water is a
standing a foot deep in the aree!"

Oh dear, oh dear! Excuse me, will you, I
must send for the plumbers at once.

          TWO HOT DAYS IN ROME.

EVERYTHING told of heat and a raging Italian
sun. People sat pale and exhausted at the shop
doors, armed with paper whisks with which                                                languidly to drive away the flies; little extempore
fountains bubbled up on tiny tables spread with
delicious pulpy lemons, and acque dolci (sweet
drinks) cooled with fresh vine-leaves. Every
woman and child we passed, of whatever degree,
carried a fan which they used industriously;
the very beggars shook their tin boxes in one
hand, and fanned themselves with the other. All
labours, trades, and occupations were done in
the streets, which, never wide at any time, were                                     now almost choked up. Shoemakers were
making shoes, tailors cross-legged on tables
squeezed into their house-walls, women cutting
and stitching on low stools, surrounded by their
gipsy-eyed progeny, girls combing each other's
hair (often a severe test of friendship in hot
weather), men walking under the eaves with
their hats in their hands, all pale, worn, exhausted.
The three-legged tables outside the cafés were
crowded with sleepy or sleeping men, lounging
on benches, the scarcely awake indulging in ices
or drinks, the sleepers in the strangest attitudes:
—for an Italian could sleep, I believe, on one leg,
if he tried. It being about noon, the street
kitchens were in active operation—fish, fresh
and foul, hissing and broiling over pans of charcoal,
stands of fruit, apricots, figs, and cherries,
ripe and ready to drop into one's mouth.

When we reached the English quarter, the
Piazza di Spagna, great was the emptiness and
the desolation; the windows in the hotels
hermetically sealed and the doors shut. Piale's a
wilderness, not a soul to be seen; the long
flight of the Trinita steps scorching and vacant,
the little fountains at its base bubbling in an
utter solitude. No groups of peasants lounging
(en tableaux). The man who does the venerable
father with long beard and patriarchal garments,
a special rascal, and the young man with the
high-art features, who does the saints and
apostles with a glory round his head; the beauty
peasant with yards of white drapery folded over
her glossy braids, under which glowed the impudent
glancing eyes, coral beads, and gold necklace—
all gone, driven out by the heat. Gone,
too, was that dear little boy who sat for an
angel when he was not stretching out his little
dimpled hand, asking, like Oliver, for "more,"
and his father, clad in sheepskins, who, with
slouch hat and ragged cloak, did the everlasting
conspirator.

Such was Rome in the dog-days—no life, no
carriages, no sound; like the enchanted city in
the Arabian Nights, all lay sunk in slumber.
We descended, as the polite French say, at the
Palazzo M., where apartments had been secured;
a noble residence, big enough to take up one
side of a square, with salons so large that people
looked dim and misty at the further end, and
galleries and corridors, luxuriously mounted,
overlooking charming gardens with fountains.
That very evening St. Peter's was to be
illuminated; so, after fortifying ourselves with an
excellent dinner, sent in piping hot from a
neighbouring trattoria in a tin box, and further
recruiting ourselves by draughts of refreshing
orvieto out of wicker bottles, we attained that
contented and happy state of mind proper to the
eve of a great festa. Evening, delicious, balmy
evening had come; the breeze swept through
the streets, and the stars peeped out as we
started together with hundreds and thousands
of the Pope's undutiful subjects for St. Peter's.
On these grand occasions the Ponti S. Angelo
is closed to the vulgar, who are obliged to pass
over the Tiber into the Trasteveri. Plunging
into the narrow streets at the entrance of this
region, the home of Raphael's Fornarina was
pointed out to me. It is a small two-windowed
house, the lower portion used as a magazine of
herbs—Anglicè, the greengrocery business.
While our carriage is slowly advancing through
the labyrinths of streets, every now and then
stopped by the carabineri (here acting as
policemen) rushing upon us with drawn swords,
I will tell my readers the real story of Raphael
and the Fornarina.