The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-07

1 And so I came to Rome and found my self well lodged with an Italian family of consequence but poor enough to take in wandering tourists for a consideration. A stout lady was my hostess. and she had daughter. Enrica. This Enrica had l light brown hair falling over her shouldres carelessly and her rich, hazel
 and went in her rich transparent cheek
 and her bosom heaved with her quick step. So fair, so young, so unlike other Italian beauties was my landlady's daughter. My chamber looked out upon l the Corso, and my parlor, which was separated from the apartments of the family by narrow corridor, looked out balconies
 Night after night a blaze glowed upon my hearth fed by fagots of alders l brought from the Albanian hills. Night
 after night the family came in to aid my
 blundering speech and enjoy the rich
 sparkle of my fagots. I taught Enrica
 French, and she schooed me in Italian.
 I used greatly to love to watch the pug zled expression of her face as she strove for the sense of some hard phrase, the thought of some old, scholastic French man, and transferred it to her own liquid melody of speech. And it was pleasant to be taught Italian by her. What a rich
 flow of superlatives and diminutives came from those vermillion lips! It was pleas ant to open a French book between us
 and to lay my hand upon the page-a small page where her hand also lay. And
 when she pointed to the wrong line it was pleasant to correct her-over and over-insisting that her hand should be
 here and not there, and lifting those little fingers from one page and putting them down on another
 Sometimes, half provoked by my fault finding, she would pat my hand smartly with hers. But when I looked in her face to see what that could mean she would meet my gaze with such kind submis- sion and half earnest regret that not only was I forced to pardon the of fense, but tempered to provoke it again.
 Upon little balcony Enrca kept a few pots of flowers which bloomed all winter long, and each morning I found upon my table a fresh rosebud. Each night did I bear back to her, for thank offering, the prettiest bouquet I could find in the Via Condotti. One day received large packet of letters. As was reading them Enrica snatched one from my hand, and looked with sad, vain curiosity at the strange scrawl-the written English was sealed to her.
 'yvhat can it be?" she asked, putting her finger upon the little half line Dear Paul" I told her it was "Caro mic" She laid the letter upon her lap and looked up into my face. "Is it from your sister?' No" Your brother?" Not from a brother either" She handed me hack the letter and presently laid down the book and went out. She did not come again in the evening, and in the morning there was no rosebud upon my table. And when came at night with bouquet for her she asked me, ''Who had written that lotter?, "A very dear friend" l said. "A lady?" "Yes. a lady," "Keep this bou- quet for her. said Enrica, and she put the bouquet back into my hands. But, Enrica, she has plenty of flowers; she lives among them. and each morning her children gather her nosegays" Enrica put her fingers within my hand to take again the bouquet; and for a moment held both fingers and bouquet. The bou- quet slipped away first.
 I had a friend at Rome then, and one day We were sitting on a block of tuffa