Early in the day Mrs. Talboys clambered up to the top of a tomb, and
made a little speech, holding a parasol over her head. Beneath her
feet, she said, reposed the ashes of some bloated senator, some
glutton of the empire, who had swallowed into his maw the provision
necessary for a tribe. Old Rome had fallen through such selfishness
as that; but new Rome would not forget the lesson. All this was
very well, and then O'Brien helped her down; but after this there
was no separating them. For her own part she would sooner have had
Mackinnon at her elbow. But Mackinnon now had found some other
elbow.

"Enough of that was as good as a feast," he had said to his wife.
And therefore Mrs. Talboys, quite unconscious of evil, allowed
herself to be engrossed by O'Brien.

And then, about three o'clock, we returned to the hamper. Luncheon
under such circumstances always means dinner, and we arranged
ourselves for a very comfortable meal. To those who know the tomb
of Cecilia Metella no description of the scene is necessary, and to
those who do not, no description will convey a fair idea of its
reality. It is itself a large low tower of great diameter, but of
beautiful proportion, standing far outside the city, close on to the
side of the old Roman way. It has been embattled on the top by some
latter-day baron, in order that it might be used for protection to
the castle, which has been built on and attached to it. If I
remember rightly, this was done by one of the Frangipani, and a very
lovely ruin he has made of it. I know no castellated old tumble-
down residence in Italy more picturesque than this baronial adjunct
to the old Roman tomb, or which better tallies with the ideas
engendered within our minds by Mrs. Radcliffe and the Mysteries of