things around us is shedding beauty wherever it goes.  The rough-handed artisan who, slowly dreaming of the beautiful, at last turns out a stone that will beautify and adorn a room, instead of rendering it hideous, has done for this practical generation what he of an earlier theoretical age did for his cotemporaries when he carved the imperial Venus of Milos.  Enough; this is the sermon not preached from stones.’

A BALL AT THE COSTA PALACE

One sunlight morning in February, while hard at work in his studio, Caper was agreeably surprised by the entrance of an elderly uncle of his, Mr. Bill Browne, of St. Louis, a gentleman of the rosy, stout, hearty school of old bachelors, who, having made a large fortune by keeping a Western country store, prudently retired from business, and finding it dull work doing nothing, wisely determined to enjoy himself with a tour over the Continent, ’or any other place he might conclude to visit.’

‘I say, Jim, did you expect to see me here?’ was his first greeting.

’Why, Uncle Bill!  Well, you are the last man I ever thought would turn up.  They didn’t write me a word of your coming over,’ answered Caper.

’Mistake; they wrote you all about it; and if you’ll drop round at the post-office, you’ll find letters there telling you the particulars.  Fact is, I am ahead of the mail.  Coming over in the steamer, met a man named Orville; told me he knew you, that he was coming straight through to Rome, and offered to pilot me.  So I gave up Paris and all that, and came smack through, eighteen days from New York.  But I’m dry.  Got a match?  Here, try one of these cigars.’

Caper took a cigar from his uncle’s case, lit it, and then, calling the man who swept out the studios, sent him to the neighboring wine-shop for a bottle of wine.

’By George, Jim, that’s a pretty painting:  that jackass is fairly alive, and so’s the girl with a red boddice.  I say, what’s she got that towel on her head for?  Is it put there to dry?’

’No; that’s an Italian peasant girl’s head-covering.  Most all of them do so.’

‘Do they?  I’m glad of that.  But here comes your man with the liquor.’

And, after drinking two or three tumblers full, Uncle Bill decided that it was pretty good cider.  The wine finished, together with a couple of rolls that came with it, the two sallied out for a walk around the Pincian Hill, the grand promenade of Rome.  Towards sunset they thought of dinner, and Uncle Bill, anxious to see life, accepted Caper’s invitation to dine at the old Gabioni:  here they ordered the best dishes, and the former swore it was as good a dinner as he ever got at the Planter’s House.  Rocjean, who dined there, delighted the old gentleman immensely, and the two fraternized at once, and drank each other’s health, old style, until Caper, fearing that neither could conveniently hold more, suggested an adjournment to the Greco for coffee and cigars.