money, with miles of real estate, with thousands of workmen. He is
director of a bank, president of a political club, chairman of half a
dozen companies and a deputy in the chambers. But his face is
unnaturally pale, his body is over-corpulent, and he has trouble with
his heart. The Del Ferice couple are childless, to their own great
satisfaction.

Anastase Gouache, the great painter, is also in Rome. Sixteen years ago
he married the love of his life, Faustina Montevarchi, in spite of the
strong opposition of her family. But times had changed. A new law
existed and the thrice repeated formal request for consent made by
Faustina to her mother, freed her from parental authority and brotherly
interference. She and her husband passed through some very lean years in
the beginning, but fortune has smiled upon them since that. Anastase is
very famous. His character has changed little. With the love of the
ideal republic in his heart, he shed his blood at Mentana for the great
conservative principle, he fired his last shot for the same cause at the
Porta Pia on the twentieth of September 1870; a month later he was
fighting for France under the gallant Charette--whether for France
imperial, regal or republican he never paused to ask; he was wounded in
fighting against the Commune, and decorated for painting the portrait of
Gambetta, after which he returned to Rome, cursed politics and married
the woman he loved, which was, on the whole, the wisest course he could
have followed. He has two children, both girls, aged now respectively
fifteen and thirteen. His virtues are many, but they do not include
economy. Though his savings are small and he depends upon his brush, he
lives in one wing of an historic palace and gives dinners which are
famous. He proposes to reform and become a miser when his daughters are
married.