“Then Nellie cannot go with you?” said Mrs. Taft.

“No, I’m sorry to say she can’t,” said my husband.

“But you have now an extra stateroom, have you not?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Well, Will, I don’t think you ought to make such a trip alone when you are so far from strong, so I just think I’ll go with you in Nellie’s place,” said my mother-in-law.

And she did. The intrepid old lady of seventy-four packed her trunks and was in New York ready to sail within twenty-four hours, and my husband wrote that she acted altogether with an energy and an enterprise which filled him with pleasure and pride. On the steamer, and later at the hotel Quirinal in Rome, she presided with dignity for more than a month over a table at which daily gathered a company composed of a Colonial Governor, a Supreme Judge, a Roman Bishop, an Anglican Bishop and a United States Army officer.

Her activity and fearlessness kept her family and friends in a state of astonishment a good part of the time. She went wherever she liked and it never seemed to occur to her that it was unusual for a woman of her age to travel everywhere with so much self-reliance. She thought nothing of crossing the American continent every year to visit her daughter or sister on the Pacific Coast, and out in Manila we used to laugh at the possibility of her appearing on the scene at any moment. In fact, she very seriously considered coming at one time. I was glad that she could go with my husband to Rome because she really could be a comfort and a help and not at all a responsibility.