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Tina fumbled at the bosom of her gown, thought deeply and drew out a crumpled envelope. It had been opened and clumsily closed again. Fifteen years ago Mary Gowd would have raged. Now she shrugged philosophic shoulders. Tina stole hairpins, opened letters that she could not hope to decipher, rummaged bureau drawers, rifled cupboards and fingered books; but then, so did most of the other Tinas in Rome. What use to complain?

Mary Gowd opened the thumb-marked letter, bringing it close to the candlelight. As she read, a smile appeared.

“Huh! Gregg,” she said, “Americans!” She glanced again at the hotel letterhead on the stationery–the best hotel in Naples. “Americans–and rich!”

The pleased little smile lingered as she beat the omelet briskly for her supper.

The Henry D. Greggs arrived in Rome on the two o’clock train from Naples. And all the Roman knights of the waving palm espied them from afar and hailed them with whoops of joy. The season was still young and the Henry D. Greggs looked like money–not Italian money, which is reckoned in lire, but American money, which mounts grandly to dollars. The postcard men in the Piazza delle Terme sped after their motor taxi. The swarthy brigand, with his wooden box of tawdry souvenirs, marked them as they rode past. The cripple who lurked behind a pillar in the colonnade threw aside his coat with a practised hitch of his shoulder to reveal the sickeningly maimed arm that was his stock in trade.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry D. Gregg had left their comfortable home in Batavia, Illinois, with its sleeping porch, veranda and lawn, and seven-passenger car; with its two glistening bathrooms, and its Oriental rugs, and its laundry in the basement, and its Sunday fried chicken and ice cream, because they felt that Miss Eleanora Gregg ought to have the benefit of foreign travel. Miss Eleanora Gregg thought so too: in fact, she had thought so first.

Her name was Eleanora, but her parents called her Tweetie, which really did not sound so bad as it might if Tweetie had been one whit less pretty. Tweetie was so amazingly, Americanly pretty that she could have triumphed over a pet name twice as absurd.

The Greggs came to Rome, as has been stated, at two P.M. Wednesday. By two P.M. Thursday Tweetie had bought a pair of long, dangling earrings, a costume with a Roman striped collar and sash, and had learned to loll back in her cab in imitation of the dashing, black-eyed, sallow women she had seen driving on the Pincio. By Thursday evening she was teasing Papa Gregg for a spray of white aigrets, such as those same languorous ladies wore in feathery mists atop their hats.

“But, Tweet,” argued Papa Gregg, “what’s the use? You can’t take them back with you. Custom-house regulations forbid it.”

The rather faded but smartly dressed Mrs. Gregg asserted herself:

“They’re barbarous! We had moving pictures at the club showing how they’re torn from the mother birds. No daughter of mine–“

“I don’t care!” retorted Tweetie. “They’re perfectly stunning; and I’m going to have them.”

And she had them–not that the aigret incident is important; but it may serve to place the Greggs in their respective niches.

At eleven o’clock Friday morning Mary Gowd called at the Gregg’s hotel, according to appointment. In far-away Batavia, Illinois, Mrs. Gregg had heard of Mary Gowd. And Mary Gowd, with her knowledge of everything Roman–from the Forum to the best place at which to buy pearls–was to be the staff on which the Greggs were to lean.

“My husband,” said Mrs. Gregg; “my daughter Twee–er–Eleanora. We’ve heard such wonderful things of you from my dear friend Mrs. Melville Peters, of Batavia.”

“Ah, yes!” exclaimed Mary Gowd. “A most charming person, Mrs. Peters.”

“After she came home from Europe she read the most wonderful paper on Rome before the Women’s West End Culture Club, of Batavia. We’re affiliated with the National Federation of Women’s Clubs, as you probably know; and–“