There is the story made in Germany, filled with students and steins and scars; with beer and blonde, blue-eyed Maedchen garbed—­the Maedchen, that is—­in black velvet bodice, white chemisette, scarlet skirt with two rows of black ribbon at the bottom, and one yellow braid over the shoulder.  Especially is this easily accomplished if actually written in the Vaterland, German typewriting machines being equipped with umlauts.

And yet not one of these formulas would seem to fit the story of Mary Gowd.  Mary Gowd, with her frumpy English hat and her dreadful English fringe, and her brick-red English cheeks, which not even the enervating Italian sun, the years of bad Italian food or the damp and dim little Roman room had been able to sallow.  Mary Gowd, with her shabby blue suit and her mangy bit of fur, and the glint of humour in her pale blue eyes.  Many, many times that same glint of humour had saved English Mary Gowd from seeking peace in the muddy old Tiber.

Her card read imposingly thus:  Mary M. Gowd, Cicerone.  Certificated and Licensed Lecturer on Art and Archaeology.  Via del Babbuino, Roma.

In plain language Mary Gowd was a guide.  Now, Rome is swarming with guides; but they are men guides.  They besiege you in front of Cook’s.  They perch at the top of the Capitoline Hill, ready to pounce on you when you arrive panting from your climb up the shallow steps.  They lie in wait in the doorway of St. Peter’s.  Bland, suave, smiling, quiet, but insistent, they dog you from the Vatican to the Catacombs.

Hundreds there are of these little men—­undersized, even in this land of small men—­dapper, agile, low-voiced, crafty.  In his inner coat pocket each carries his credentials, greasy, thumb-worn documents, but precious.  He glances at your shoes—­this insinuating one—­or at your hat, or at any of those myriad signs by which he marks you for his own.  Then up he steps and speaks to you in the language of your country, be you French, German, English, Spanish or American.

And each one of this clan—­each slim, feline little man in blue serge, white-toothed, gimlet-eyed, smooth-tongued, brisk—­hated Mary Gowd.  They hated her with the hate of an Italian for an outlander—­with the hate of an Italian for a woman who works with her brain—­with the hate of an Italian who sees another taking the bread out of his mouth.  All this, coupled with the fact that your Italian is a natural-born hater, may indicate that the life of Mary Gowd had not the lyric lilt that life is commonly reputed to have in sunny Italy.

Oh, there is no formula for Mary Gowd’s story.  In the first place, the tale of how Mary Gowd came to be the one woman guide in Rome runs like melodrama.  And Mary herself, from her white cotton gloves, darned at the fingers, to her figure, which mysteriously remained the same in spite of fifteen years of scant Italian fare, does not fit gracefully into the role of heroine.