The Storys still live in the third heaven of the Barberini Palace, where on Fridays there is a steady procession of tea-thirsty English and Americans who toil upward.

The two sons are what Mr. Story calls “promising.”  Waldo (the elder) promises to rival his father as a sculptor.  Julian promises to be a great painter.  His picture of Cardinal Howard, all in red against a red background, is a fine study in color besides being an excellent likeness.

The Haseltines are flourishing like green bay-trees.  Their beautiful apartment in the Altieri Palace, where his atelier is, is filled with his exquisite water-colors and paintings.  Her brother, Mr. Marshall, is staying with them.  He is very amusing.  Last evening he held the table in a roar when he told of a recent experience.

At the Duchess Fiano’s costume ball he had worn a costume of a Mignon-Henri-II.  He described it to us.  A light-blue satin jacket, and trunk-hose, slashed to exaggeration, with white satin puffs, a jaunty velvet cap with a long feather, and white satin shoes turned up at the ends.

Worth had made it and put a price on it almost equal to Marshall’s income, and just because it had cost so much and he had received a good many compliments he thought it was his duty to have it and himself photographed as a memento of his reckless extravagance before the costume was consigned to oblivion.  On the day of his appointment with the artist he was dressed and ready in his costume.  As it was a rainy day, he provided himself with an umbrella and a pair of india-rubbers big enough to go over the gondola-like shoes.  He also carried a stuffed falcon in his hand so that there should be no doubt as to what he was.

Unluckily, the horse fell down on the slippery Corso, and the coachman insisted upon Marshall’s getting out.

“You may imagine my feelings,” he said, “at being obliged to show myself in broad daylight in this get-up.  A crowd of gaping idiots gathered about me and made particularly sarcastic remarks.  One said, ‘E il Re!’ (’It is the King’).  Another screamed, ’Quante e bello I piccolo!’ There was I stranded in the middle of the Corso, holding an umbrella over my head in one hand and that ridiculous falcon in the other, my feather dripping down my back; and when I looked down at blue legs fast turning another color and my huge india-rubbers I realized what a spectacle I was making of myself....”

We laughed till the tears rolled down our cheeks.  He showed us the photograph, and I must say that a less Mignon-Henri-II-like Mignon and a more typical American face and figure could not be imagined.  If Henri II had caught sight of him with his thin legs, side-whiskers, and eye-glasses he would have turned in his grave.