Even with the work and fuss of settling the house Livy has improved—­and the best is yet to come.  There is going to be absolute seclusion here —­a hermit life, in fact.  We (the rest of us) shall run over to the Ross’s frequently, and they will come here now and then and see Livy —­that is all.  Mr. Fiske is away—­nobody knows where—­and the work on his house has been stopped and his servants discharged.  Therefore we shall merely go Rossing—­as far as society is concerned—­shan’t circulate in Florence until Livy shall be well enough to take a share in it.

This present house is modern.  It is not much more than two centuries old; but parts of it, and also its foundations are of high antiquity.  The fine beautiful family portraits—­the great carved ones in the large ovals over the doors of the big hall—­carry one well back into the past.  One of them is dated 1305—­he could have known Dante, you see.  Another is dated 1343—­he could have known Boccaccio and spent his afternoons in Fiesole listening to the Decameron tales.  Another is dated 1463 --he could have met Columbus.....

Evening.  The storm thundered away until night, and the rain came down in floods.  For awhile there was a partial break, which furnished about such a sunset as will be exhibited when the Last Day comes and the universe tumbles together in wreck and ruin.  I have never seen anything more spectacular and impressive.

One person is satisfied with the villa, anyway.  Jean prefers it to all Europe, save Venice.  Jean is eager to get at the Italian tongue again, now, and I see that she has forgotten little or nothing of what she learned of it in Rome and Venice last spring.

I am the head French duffer of the family.  Most of the talk goes over my head at the table.  I catch only words, not phrases.  When Italian comes to be substituted I shall be even worse off than I am now, I suppose.

This reminds me that this evening the German girl said to Livy, “Man hat mir gesagt loss Sie una candella verlaught habe”—­unconsciously dropping in a couple of Italian words, you see.  So she is going to join the polyglots, too, it appears.  They say it is good entertainment to hear her and the butler talk together in their respective tongues, piecing out and patching up with the universal sign-language as they go along.  Five languages in use in the house (including the sign-language-hardest-worked of them all) and yet with all this opulence of resource we do seem to have an uncommonly tough time making ourselves understood.

What we lack is a cat.  If we only had Germania!  That was the most satisfactory all-round cat I have seen yet.  Totally ungermanic in the raciness of his character and in the sparkle of his mind and the spontaneity of his movements.  We shall not look upon his like again....

S. L. C.