Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/178

160 began Lavinia, as they went stumbling through the mud and confusion of a big, unfinished station on their arrival at the eternal city.

"People of sense don't judge a place at ten o'clock of a pitch-dark, rainy night, especially if they are hungry, tired, and, excuse me, love, rather cross," returned Amanda, severely, as they piled into a carriage and drove to Piazza di Spagna.

"I see a divine fountain! A splendid palace! Now it's a statue of some sort! I do believe that dark figure was a monk! I know I shall like it in spite of every thing," cried Matilda excitedly, flattening her nose against the window.

She had been much disappointed at not being able to enter Rome by daylight, so that she might clasp her hands and cry aloud, half stifled with the overpowering emotions of the moment, "Roma! Roma! the eternal city bursts upon my view!"

That was the proper thing to do, and it was a blow to make so commonplace and ignoble an entry into the city of her dreams.

Early next morning, Livy was roused from slumber by cries of delight, and, starting up, beheld her artist sister wrapped in a dressing-gown, with dishevelled