Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/190

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172
SHAWL-STRAPS.

off: ladies with carriages full of flowers, troops of soldiers, and throngs of poor people blessing him like a saint; for this kingly sympathy of his had won all hearts.

"When he does make his grand entry, we will decorate our balcony, and have our six windows packed with loyal Yankees who will hurrah their best for 'the honest man,' as they call Victor Emmanuel, and that is high praise for a king."

So said the three, and while waiting for the event (which did not occur in their day, however), they indulged in all the pastimes modern Rome afforded. They shivered through endless galleries, getting "cricks" in their necks staring at frescos, and injuring their optic nerves poring over pictures so old that often nothing was visible but a mahogany-colored leg, an oily face, or the dim outline of a green saint in a whirlwind of pink angels.

They grubbed in catacombs and came up mouldy. They picnicked in the tomb of Cæcelia Metella, flirted in the palace of the Cæsars,—not in the classical manner, however,—got cold by moonlight in the Colosseum, and went sketching in the Baths of Caracalla, which last amusement generally ended in the