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difficulties. Her several farms evidently bring little relief to the family budget, yet she is supposed to be very rich and her soldier son apparently shares this opinion, for he has a way of sending his comrades passing through Florence to be helped by his mother until she, quite consistently wrote to him "Quit playing Father Christmas!"

Helped by her daughter, she herself does the household work of her big villa, including the cooking. Natalie tries to direct Antonio's already overstrained efforts in her behalf, but here I intervene. I tell Natalie that she is apt to borrow from Peter to pay Paul: that I am Peter and Paul is any stranger she may happen to meet round the corner. But as I have already stated, Natalie's brain must always be concocting complicated situations, and these she directs usually with success though at times with fatal results. Then again she may abandon a plan half way through, leaving to those near her the task of unravelling the tangle that ensues.

Another example will illustrate what I have been saying about my friend's active brain. Lately I have noticed, walking along Via S. Leonardo, an individual wearing a very old waterproof and a dirty white linen hat thrust low over his forehead. He was airing two little dogs whom I had already seen following a lady. Yesterday that individual accosted Natalie who was walking ahead of me. Joining them and thinking the man a gardener or something of the sort, I enquired if the