Tuesday Dearest Mother. You were really very kind not to mind me staying in Rome [Roma]! I felt when I got your letter about the dinner party that I ought to come home at once and I shall think of you tomorrow evening and wish you were here. Meantime my regrets are tempered by having learnt so much. I have been working like a slave and have got to the bottom of Diocletian's baths this last day or two. This morning I am going to turn my attention to the Pantheon. I have also been working at ornament and find to my joy that the moment one begins to look at it with care, a regular sequence is apparent and the things that all seemed an immense muddle fall into a quite comprehensible history. All this has left me little time for anything else. I went to a party at the Filippis' on Friday, very amusing. I met there Sir Foster Cunliffe, your friend, whom I like and would see more of if I had time. On Saturday I worked mostly in Museums and at the Institute. In the late afternoon Delbrück and I went to a lecture of Rivoira's which was extremely instructive. On Sunday I entertained Maud White and Mr Hubbard to lunch on the Aventine and afterwards spent the afternoon in the Forum with Mr Hubbard. There I was so idiotic as to leave my notebook - a great misfortune. I fear it will never turn up though Boni is in a fearful state of mind about it. I went in to see him on Monday morning about it and the dear old thing put the following advertisement in the Tribuna! I need not say I had nothing to do with the wording of it. He also sent me an immense branch of flowering bay to console me. Yesterday I was busy with Diocletian and with ornament. The camera has come - thank you a thousand times - but I can't get it out of the post office without the help of the Embassy, such is Italy! Mr Wyndham is to get it for me today. Lady Mackenzie (wife of Sir George and a friend of Eugénie's) has arrived here - a nice woman. Also Louise Duchess, to Eugénie's mingled delight and despair - but not at the pension! A charming man has been in Rome, M. Naville, the Egyptian excavator. We have seen a great deal of him and I love him dearly. He is coming to see us in London. I am turning over in my mind whether when I leave here (probably on the 26th) I will not go to Spalato [Split] and Ravenna for the day, but I will let you know then.
Now for Hadrian. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude