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her aunt, an old Marquise, and her mother who was ill in bed, on the request of her aunt they retired after placing a notice outside that the house was to be respected.

October 12th. A visitor told us that a palace belonging to an eminent Florentine family was bombed last night when the lights were kept on after repeated warnings. Many aristocrats have been imprisoned as reprisal for the shooting of Fascists in the occupied régime. Our visitor agrees that the worst is yet to come. The papers say that the Allies are to land further north on the Adriatic coast and so cut Italy in two. Shall we then be within the battle zone?

October 13th. My peasant tells of a long, narrow subterranean canal with a path running from the water works through the fields but though solidly vaulted this passage is not high enough to stand up in. My peasant intends installing his family there and advises the Signora to follow suit. Natalie hates the idea and has much to say against it from a sanitary point of view, but should a battle rage around us, we shall probably be only too glad to climb down through the small hole in the ground, and there with camp-stools and pocket-lamps sit among the little crawling creatures that live in just such dark and damp places.

October 14th. We went to see the Countess L. who lives on the Lungarno. This American femme du monde claiming no particular knowledge of art or literature, has charm and expressed herself in a frank and amusing way. The Countess gave us news of our very old friend, the