Udolpho. It lies along the road, protected on the side of the city
by the proud sepulchre of the Roman matron, and up to the long
ruined walls of the back of the building stretches a grassy slope,
at the bottom of which are the remains of an old Roman circus.
Beyond that is the long, thin, graceful line of the Claudian
aqueduct, with Soracte in the distance to the left, and Tivoli,
Palestine, and Frascati lying among the hills which bound the view.
That Frangipani baron was in the right of it, and I hope he got the
value of his money out of the residence which he built for himself.
I doubt, however, that he did but little good to those who lived in
his close neighbourhood.

We had a very comfortable little banquet seated on the broken lumps
of stone which lie about under the walls of the tomb. I wonder
whether the shade of Cecilia Metella was looking down upon us. We
have heard much of her in these latter days, and yet we know nothing
about her, nor can conceive why she was honoured with a bigger tomb
than any other Roman matron. There were those then among our party
who believed that she might still come back among us, and with due
assistance from some cognate susceptible spirit, explain to us the
cause of her widowed husband's liberality. Alas, alas! if we may
judge of the Romans by ourselves, the true reason for such
sepulchral grandeur would redound little to the credit of the lady
Cecilia Metella herself, or to that of Crassus, her bereaved and
desolate lord.

She did not come among us on the occasion of this banquet, possibly
because we had no tables there to turn in preparation for her
presence; but, had she done so, she could not have been more
eloquent of things of the other world than was Mrs. Talboys. I have