Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/307

 American lady in this hotel said her daughters had dragged her about so much that she didn't know what country she was in any more, except by the postage stamps. If I were in her place I should lie down to take a nap when I arrived in town, and say I had seen the things when I went back to Fond du Lac; there's where she lived before her daughters took to doing Paris in one day and London in two; they told me quite simply that was the time you needed to give.

Dad, we drove in the automobile along the . It sounds shocking, but it wasn't; it was glorious. There is never anything jarring (I don't mean that for a pun) about going into the midst of old and wonderful things on a motor-car, for it is wonderful too, and it has a dignity of its own—the dignity of fine and perfect mechanism which seems alive, like a splendid Pegasus or an obedient unicorn, or some other strange legendary animal which you are obliged to respect and marvel at.

And Brown took me into the Colosseum last night—late—when the moon was rising out of torn black clouds.

But I said I wasn't going to write about Rome, and I won't—I vow I won't, not even about St. Peter's. I think one ought to stop here ten days, and see things all day long—just things you want to see, not things you ought to see; or else linger for months, and let everything soak into your soul. I can't do the latter, this time, with the Napier waiting—waiting; and so I'm making the best of the first.

Your reincarnated Roman Princess,