RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
and a gold pen in the form of a large feather with the papal arms on it. To me the Pope sent a small piece of old German enamel showing a copy of an ancient picture of St. Ursula and her virgins, framed in silver and gold beau- tifully wrought. Smaller gold medals were given to each of the other Commissioners, while President Roosevelt re- ceived a copy in mosaic of a picture of a view of Rome from a corner in the Vatican gardens in which the Pope is seen seated with three or four Cardinals in attendance. This, together with letters from His Holiness and Cardinal Ram- polla to the President and Mr. Hay, the Secretary of State, was given to Bishop O'Gorman to be delivered when he arrived in the United States.
My husband sailed from Naples on the 24th of July, and I, with the three children and their French governess, started north by Venice and Vienna to spend a few weeks in the mountains of Switzerland before returning to Manila.
There were rather terrifying reports of a cholera epidemic raging in the Philippines and I dreaded the prospects of going into it with my children, but I knew that heroic efforts were being made to check it and I felt confident that, in Manila at least, it would have run its course before I should arrive, so I booked passage on the German steamer Hamburg and on the 3rd of September sailed for the East and the tropics once more.
250
