Do not ask me what we have done or whom we have seen.  We are out morning, noon, and night.  Every day there is a regular “precession of the equinoxes”—­luncheons, dinners, and soirees galore.

I sing twice a week with the Queen—­red-letter days for me.  I look forward with joy to passing that hour with her.  I never knew any one so full of interest, humor, and intelligence.  It is delightful to see her when she is amused.  She can laugh so heartily, and no one, when there is occasion for sympathy, is more ready to give it.  Her kind eyes can fill with tears as quickly as they can see the fun in a situation.

Nina and I go out every morning from ten to twelve.  Johan is then busy with his despatches and shut up in the chancellery.  It is the fashion during those hours to drive in a cab in the Corso.  It is not considered chic to go out in one’s own carriage until the afternoon.  I am glad of the excuse of buying even a paper of pins in order to be out in the sunshine.

Another queer fashion is that on Sundays gentlemen (the highest of the high) who have their own fine equipages, of which on week-days they are so proud, drive to the fashionable places, like Villa Borghese and Villa Doria, in cabs.  Sometimes you will see the beaux most in vogue squeezed (three or four of them) in a little botte (the Italian name for cab), looking very uncomfortable.  But as it is the thing to do, they are proud and happy to do it.  But on other days!—­horrible!  Nevertheless, it is on Sundays (especially on Sundays) that Principe Massimo causes people to stop and stare because he drives abroad on that day in his high-seated phaeton, his long side-whiskers floating in the wind, his servants in their conspicuous dark-red liveries covered with armorial braid, pale-blue cuffs and collars, sitting behind him.  Then it is that the Romans say to themselves, Our aristocracy is not yet dead.

Our colleagues, the de W.’s, had a loge in the Argentina Theater and invited us the other evening to go with them to see the great Salvini in “Hamlet.”  The theater was filled to the uppermost galleries; you could not have wedged in another person.  The people in the audience, when not applauding, were as silent as so many mice; this is unlike the usual theater-going Italian, who reads and rustles his evening paper all through the performance, looking up occasionally to hiss.

Salvini surpassed himself, perhaps on account of the presence of her Majesty, whose eyes never wandered from the stage, except in the entr’actes, when she responded to the ovation the public always makes wherever she appears.  She rose and bowed with her sweet smile, the smile which wins all hearts.

There was only one hitch during the performance, and that was when Hamlet and Polonius fought the duel; the latter, unfortunately, missed his aim and speared Hamlet’s wig with his sword, on which it stuck in spite of the most desperate efforts to shake it off.  Salvini, all unconscious, continued fencing until he caught sight of his wig dangling in the air and, realizing his un-Hamlet-like bald head, backed out into the side-wing, leaving Polonius to get off the stage as best he could.