SIX SUNNY MONTHS.BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.CHAPTERIX.A BRIGHT EVENING.Everybodyknows the great sights of Rome by repute, if not by sight, and it may safely be said that no one cares to hear more of them in the way of description. Indeed, seeing them first, we almost regret having heard so much, and find it difficult to free the real object from thedébrisof our preconceptions. There is, however, an endless number of less notable objects, little bits here and there—a stair, a street, a door-way, or garden, half rough, or almost altogether rough, but with some beautiful point, like a gem that has had one facet only cut. These, besides their own beauty, have the charm of freshness. The stale, useful guide-book, and the weary tribe of tourists, know them not.One of these unspoilt places is to be found almost next door tocasa Ottant’Otto. It is a chapel attached to an Augustinian convent in which the changed times have left only onefratewith his attendant lay brother. The chapel has a rough brick floor, and large piers of stone and mortar supporting, most unnecessarily, the white-washed roof, and the walls at either side are painted with a few large frescos of saints. There are two chapels only, one at each side of the principal altar, adorned with such poor little bravery as thefratiand the frequenters of their church—nearly all beggars, or very poor—could afford. The chapel has, however,one beauty—a Madonna and Child over the high altar. The Mother, of an angelic and flower-like beauty, holds the Infant forward toward the spectator, and the Infant, radiant with a sacred sweetness, extends his right hand, the two fingers open in benediction.Mass is said here early in the morning, and a Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament given every Tuesday evening an hour beforeAve Maria, the bells ringing always three times for each service.The Signora had spoken at home of this little church of Sant’Antonino, and had laughingly called the attention of the family to the slipshod ringing of the Angelus, where the different divisions of strokes, the bell being swung from below, “spilled over,” as she expressed it, in a number of fainter strokes before and after the regular ones. “But it is a dear little place to go to,” she said. “There one finds the Lord as one might have found him when on earth visibly—in the midst of the poor, with but few followers, and no splendor of circumstance to take one’s eyes away from him. And sometimes, if one’s disposition be fortunate, his presence overflows the place.”Coming homeward alone, one evening, just as the bell rang, Mr. Vane stepped into the chapel, and, after hesitating a moment inside the door, went up the side aisle and seated himself in a corner. Hehad been there more than once early in the morning, but this was his first evening visit, and he did not care, for several reasons, to encounter any of his family, should they come.The congregation was, as the Signora had said, poor enough. There were a few old women, with kerchiefs on their heads; a sober, decent man, who hid himself in a retired corner, and knelt with his hands covering his face during the whole service; a lame old man, with a worn and sorrowful face; and a young mother, with an infant in her arms and two little ones clinging to her skirts.Not one of these paid the slightest attention to the others, or showed any consciousness of being, or expecting to be, observed. All looked toward the altar, on which the Host was now exposed, and all prayed with a fervor which could not but communicate itself to the spectator; for it was the quiet fervor of faith and habit, and was not excited by beautiful sights, or music, or the presence of a crowd. They beheld the mysterious token of the Holy Presence, and the Madonna—the Lady of Health, they called her—and worshipped, as untroubled by vanity as by doubt.The two little ones whispered and played behind their mother’s back, but no one was disturbed by them. No one ever hushes the play of children in a Roman church. The infant crowed and prattled at first, and pulled the kerchief from its mother’s head; but espying presently the candles, and hearing the organ and voices, it fell into a trance, divided between staring and listening, which held it motionless till the service was over. Rather late came a young woman dressed in an absurd travesty of theprevailing fashion, with a cheap soiled skirt trailing behind her, a hideous tunic pulled in about her and tied behind in that style that gives a woman the appearance of one trying to walk in a sack, and a bonnet made up of odds and ends of ribbon and flowers and feathers pitiable to see. But the poor thing had donned this miserable finery with no worse intention than that any lady has when assuming Worth’s last costume, and, hearing the voice of prayer as she passed, had done what the lady of fashion would not, perhaps, have done—obeyed its summons, and entered modestly and humbly the presence of God. Perhaps it was the one pleasure in a hard life, that occasional promenade in what she conceived to be a fine dress; perhaps she had been pleased, and was thankful for it, as we sometimes are for pleasures no more harmless; it may be she was disappointed and had come to find comfort. Who knows?Mr. Vane looked intently at this girl a few minutes in a way he had, something penetrating in his scrutiny, yet nothing offensive; for it was as far removed from impertinent curiosity as from a too familiar sympathy. Then the Litany recalled him. As he listened to it, he thought that he had never heard music at once so good and so bad. The organ was like a sweet, courageous soul in an infirm body. All the wheezing and creaking of the bellows could not prevent the tones from being melodious. How many there were in the choir he could not tell. The absurd little organ-loft over the door, reached by a ladder in full view at the side, had so high a screen that the singers were quite hidden. They sounded like a host, however, for their voicesechoed and reverberated from arch to arch and from end to end of the chapel, so that, without the aid of sight, it was hard to know where the sound had its origin; and when, at every fourth verse, the priest and congregation took up the song, the air literally trembled with the force of it. Mr. Vane fancied he felt his hair stir.His heart stirred, most certainly; for the power and earnestness of the singing, which made a mere cultivated vocalism trivial and tame, and perhaps the sustained high pitch of it—all contained within four notes—touched the chord of the sublime. They sang the titles of the Virgin-Mother, calling on her, by every tender and every glorious privilege of hers, to pray for them; and their prayer was no more the part of an oft-repeated ceremony, but the cry of souls that might each or all, in an instant, be struggling in the waves of death. Life itself grew suddenly awful while he listened, and he remembered that salvation is to be “worked out in fear and trembling.”He lifted his eyes to the picture over the altar, and it was no longer a picture. The figures floated before him in the misty golden light of many candles, as if there were blood in their veins and meaning in their faces. The Mother extended her Child, and the Child blessed them, and both listened. She was the Mystical Rose, the Morning Star; she was the Help of the weak, the Mother of divine Grace. They sang her glories, and this listener from a far land forgot the narrow walls that hemmed him in, and saw only those faces, and felt, as it were, the universe rock with acclamations. She was a queen, and under her feet, and about her, bearing her up, wereangels, prophets, martyrs, confessors, and patriarchs. Their wings, wide-spread and waving; their garments of light, as varied in hue as the rainbow; their radiant faces were like the crowding clouds of sunset; and over them all, buoyant, glowing with celestial sweetness and joy, floated the woman crowned with stars, the only human being whom sin had never dared to touch. The stars swam about her head like golden bees about a flower; and as a flower curls its petals down, half hiding, half revealing, the shining heart which is its source and life, so the Mother bent above and clasped the Infant. In the centre of this vision was the Blessed Sacrament exposed, more marvellous than any vision, more real than any other tangible thing; so that Imagination was bound to Faith as wings to the shoulders of an angel.There was a little stir in one corner of the chapel; for the strange gentleman had nearly fallen from his chair, and a lay brother, passing at the moment, supported him, and asked what he would have and what ailed him.The gentleman replied that nothing ailed him, that he needed nothing but fresher air, and he immediately recovered so far as to go out without assistance. He had, indeed, been more self-forgetting and entranced than fainting, and even when he stood on the sidewalk, with familiar sights and sounds all about, could hardly remember where he was. He walked a little way up the hill opposite, and stood looking absently along a cross-street at the other end of which a new Gothic church was in progress.A man who had been standing near approached him with an insinuating smile. “Our church is gettingalong rapidly,” he said in English, appearing to know whom he addressed. “We shall soon have divine service in it, I hope.”“Divine service!” repeated Mr. Vane rather absently, not having looked at the meeting-house, and scarcely knowing what was being said to him. “What divine service?”“Oh! the Protestant, of course,” the stranger answered with great suavity. “I am a minister of the Gospel.”“What Gospel?” inquired Mr. Vane, looking at the speaker with the air of one who listens patiently to nonsense.The man stared. “The Gospel of Christ. There is no other.” He knew who Mr. Vane was, and had expected to be himself recognized. “It is time the Gospel should be preached in this wicked and idolatrous city.”“Is it worse than other cities?” Mr. Vane asked calmly. “Most cities are wicked, but few cities have saints in them, as this has. We are told that the wheat and the tares shall grow together till the final harvest. As for your religion”—he stretched his hand to a load of straw that was passing, and drew a handful out—“it has no more Gospel in it than there is wheat in that straw.”The rattling bells of Sant’Antonino were ringing for theTantum Ergo. He turned, without another word, and went back, kneeling just within the door till the Benediction was over.When he went into the house the Signora was singing the “He was despised and rejected of men,” from theMessiah. Before her on the piano stood a picture that had just been sent her—her favorite devotional picture, which she hadlong been trying to get. Outside a door, overgrown with vines and weeds, and fastened by a bolt, stood the Lord, waiting sorrowfully and patiently, listening if his knock would be answered. Solitude and the damp shades of night were all about him, the stars looked cold and far away, and the lantern he held at his side, faintly lighting his face, showed through what rough, dark ways he had come to that inhospitable heart. Underneath was written: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.”The Signora was singing, “And we hid, as it were, our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemed him not,” tears rolling down her face, her eyes fixed on the picture. Finishing, scarcely uttering, indeed, the last word, she started up and kissed the picture in a passion, then, hurrying across the room, flung the door wide.“Open every door in the house!” she cried out.Bianca, surprised but sympathizing, simply obeyed, and pushed open the door near her; Isabel exclaimed, “Dear Signora!” and seemed half frightened. Mr. Vane stood silent and looked at the picture.“Oh! I know it is figurative and means the heart!” the Signora went on, as if some one had reproved her. “But when we do something material, we know that we have done it. When we think we have done a spiritual good, how can we know that it is worth anything for us—that the motive was not selfish? If, for example, the Lord should come here now, poor and hungry, and knock at my door, I would serve him on my knees; but if I should say I love him, who knows if it would be true?”“Signora mia!” It was a thinand feeble voice, but she heard it through the passion of her talk, and, turning, saw on the threshold an old man, who stood trembling, hat in hand, and leaning against the side of the door for support. He had followed Mr. Vane home from the chapel to beg for alms, but had not been able to reach or make him hear or understand before the door was shut. He was going painfully away again, when it was flung open by the Signora.She went to him with her hands outstretched. “Enter, in the name of the Lord,” she said joyfully, and led him to a chair. Kind as she was invariably to the poor, this one she looked on as almost a miraculous guest. He had come at the very moment when her heart was breaking to do some active good, as if her wish had called him, or as if the Lord she compassionated had taken his form to prove her.Never was a beggar more welcomed, more tenderly questioned as to his needs. He was fed as, probably, he had never been fed before; for the Signora gave him of what had been prepared for her own table, and served him like an honored guest.He was pleased, but did not seem to be either surprised or embarrassed. He ate and drank rather lightly, and, without being bidden, put in a leathern pocket he wore what was left of the food. There was no air of greediness in the act, but rather an intimation that no one would think of eating what he had left, and that what had been offered him must not be wasted. When Mr. Vane gave him some decent clothing in place of his faded rags, he was grateful, but by no means elated. How he looked was to him a matter of the smallest possible consequence. He could feel hunger,thirst, and cold, but pride or vanity he knew not. His body, ugly, emaciated, and diseased, obtained from him no attention, except when it could obscure and torment his mind with its own torments. He never thought for it, but waited till it called. When the sisters gave him money, he looked at them earnestly, with his dim and watery eyes, and wished that the Madonna might ever accompany them. He did not predict for them riches or happiness, but only that gracious company. When the Signora bade him come to her every day for a loaf of bread and a glass of wine, he thanked her in the same way. Evidently he understood that what he was receiving was a heavenly charity, of which God was the motive and reward, and that he had, personally, nothing to do with it, except as he profited by it. But he had, indeed, more to do with it than he believed; for it was impossible that kind hearts should remain unmoved by the sight of such forlorn poverty and suffering.They questioned him about his life and circumstances. He was quite alone. One son he had had, who went to some foreign country years before, and had never been heard of since. He supposed that he must have died on the passage or immediately on arriving; for Filippo had promised to write and send for him, or send him money, and nothing but death would have made him break his promise to his father. His wife had died more than ten years before; and he had no one left to care for him. Where was his home? they asked. Well, he slept in the lodgings provided by the city, because they did not allow people to sleep in the street. He used to sleep on one of the steps of the church ofAra Cœliand heliked it better, for he could go off by himself. Still, the government gave them straw to sleep on, and that was something. It was rather cold on the steps, even in summer.“But where do you go in the daytime?” they pursued, finding the idea of no house or home of any description a hard one to take in.He went into churches sometimes; at others he sat on a house-step, and stood under the eaves if it rained. He was indeed able to say, “The birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes,” but he had not where to lay his head.“I cannot listen to any more,” the Signora said. “Do you know, my friends, what seems my duty to do? Well, I will tell you. At this moment it seems to me that I should send you all to a hotel, or to any place you can find, and fill half my rooms with little beds for poor men, and the other half with beds for poor women, and spend all my time and money in taking care of them. Gloves, and a bonnet, and all sorts of luxuries look to me like sins, in the light of this man’s story; and as to having more than one room for myself, it is monstrous. Either pack your trunks at once, or send this fascinating wretch off to sleep on the municipal straw.”“You can’t send us off; for you have promised to keep us as long as we stay in Rome,” Isabel said triumphantly. “If you should turn your house into a refuge, you would be doing evil that good may come, by breaking a promise.”When their guest had gone and they were sitting at supper, the conversation still turned on the Roman poor and their manner of receiving charity, and Mr. Vane expressed his astonishment that so little of servility should be mingled with this constant begging.“You must remember,” the Signora said, “that the mendicant religious orders have given a sort of dignity to poverty, and, though theirs is of a different kind, the people do not distinguish. Then among the many voluntary poor there are two who are particularly cherished in Rome—Santa Francesca Romana and Blessed Labré. The women sitting at the church-door could tell you, if you should try to shame them, that Santa Francesca once sat at a church-door and begged from early morning tillAve Maria; and the poor who ask you for acentessimoin the street know that Labré went about begging, and in clothes as filthy and ragged as any of theirs. Of course they do not distinguish the motives, and have, many of them, made a Christian virtue an excuse for a miserable vice; but,come si fa?as they would say. We cannot spend our time in arguing with them; and, if we should, it would be time thrown away. They have no comprehension of what we call independence; and they think that the blessings they bestow, and the merit we acquire in giving to them, are worth far more than the paltry copper coin they receive from us, and that we are, in reality, their debtors.”They hurried their supper a little; for they were going out, and it was already nine o’clock. Before they had risen from the table Marion came in to accompany them, and the carriages were at the door.This matter of the carriages, and the division of her party in them, simple as it seemed, had given the Signora some thought. She was afraid that some new complication might arise between Marion and Bianca, and wished earnestly that they should come to an understandingimmediately. Nothing appeared to be easier, yet every day was a succession of little obstacles to their speaking together in that accidental privacy which they would naturally prefer. Still, she could not well put them in a carriage together. It would look too pointed. There seemed no other way, then, than to take him in the cab with her, and give thecalècheto Mr. Vane and his daughter. That any one should suppose that an attraction was growing up between her and this new friend had never occurred to her mind; yet both Mr. Vane and Bianca saw in every word and act of hers a new proof of it. Any one with eyes could see that Marion and Bianca liked each other particularly, the Signora believed. One had but to watch a few minutes, and it became evident that in company each was always so placed as to see and, if possible, to hear the other; and though one might not detect them looking directly, yet sometimes a glance, passing from one part of the room to another, swooped like a bird, and caught the one object it wished to seize within its ken. Yet Bianca provoked her somewhat. The girl was too serious and gentle, too discouragingly friendly. Why, thought the Signora, with that admirable good sense which we sometimes have when we think for others—why, when two persons are admirably fitted for each other, and everybody is willing, and neither of them can quite set about anything till the matter is decided; and when the gentleman, not to be too abrupt in his proposal, or expose himself to an unnecessary mortification, gives the lady that gentle, questioning glance which says so plainly, “May I speak?”—why, in the name of common sense, should she not drop herpretty head in token of assent, and allow at least a hint of a smile to encourage him? Echo answered, Why?The upper air was silver with a late moonrise when they went out, while below the lamps burned goldenly through a velvety darkness. Their own street was quiet; but there was a crowd on Monte Cavallo. The glimpse they caught of the piazza of the Trevi fountain in passing showed it full and bright, and the Corso, when they reached it, was swarming with people and brilliant with lighted shops.“What contrasts there are in Roman life, even in its most quiet times!” Marion said. “I wonder if any one ever was bored here? I doubt it. How well I remember one day of my last visit, three years ago now! It was a bright February afternoon, and I went out for a walk in the Campagna, and saw the ground covered with flowers, and myriads of birds flying about and singing. Coming back to town out of that verdant quiet, I went to the Corso. It was roaring with the height of the last day of Carnival. It looked as if all the world had gone mad with reckless mirth, and, by a common consent, were pressing to that one spot. It was with difficulty I got across the street, shaking a monkey from one arm, and escaping from the lasso of a huge devil on the other side. A few minutes brought me to the Gesù. There what a scene! The church all in darkness, except the tribune, where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the midst of a blaze of candles that shone on a crowd of faces all silent and turned toward the altar. Now and then the organ played softly; now and then a quiet figure stole in and found room to kneel where it seemed therewas no room for more. It was so still that every time the heavy curtain lifted there could be heard through the whole church the rattling of the tin boxes of the beggars outside. Half an hour later I reached the Corso again, just in time to see the horses rush by like meteors between two solid walls of men and women. And, lastly, just as the stars were coming out, burst the fairy spectacle of themoccoletti, when the narrow street became like a strip cut out of the live sky, thick with dancing stars, and palpitating with the soft pulses of the Northern Lights, blue, green, rosy, and white. I could have said it was not ten minutes before it was all over and I was walking home through a silent, star-lit night. The next morning at six I went to a church and received the Lenten ashes on my forehead. I do not wonder that Romans are lazy, for their imaginations are so kept on thequi vivethat muscular action must necessarily be distasteful. They cannot help regarding life as afesta.”They reached their destination, a palace close toSt.Peter’s. Two servants stood bowing in theportone, and a little girl, the daughter of one, presented each of the ladies with a bunch of orange-blossoms. They passed into the court, where a fountain tossed its sparkling arch of water, sprinkling the greensward, which here replaced the usual pavement, and went up the grand stairs. The groined arches over their heads were glowing with color, trees, flowers, vines, birds, and butterflies—not an inch of wall was unpainted. Pots of flowering plants stood at the ends of the stairs and at the landings, and statues showed whitely through their fragrant screens. Here and there a lamp dropped from a gilt chain, and softly illuminedthis superb entrance. At the end of the first entry two servants held back the crimson velvet curtains of an open door, receiving the visitors into a chamber furnished in crimson, the walls of crimson and gold, the ceiling painted with sunset clouds, and a crescent of candles burning in front of crystal lustres. Reaching the next door, they looked down a vista composed of twelve or fourteen rooms, all softly lighted except the last, which was brilliant. The light struck along on door after door, all gilded, and set with mirrors at one side and paintings at the other, the curtains of silk or velvet drawn back on gilt spears or arrows. The floors were mostly uncovered, some of them of rare marbles or mosaics; a few were partially covered with thick Persian mats or carpets. One room was furnished in gold-colored satin, and profusely ornamented with the most delicate porcelain; a second was of a rich sea-green, sparkling all through with crystal ornaments, the chandelier of Venetian glass, the cornice made of large shells, and the ceiling painted in coral branches, tangled full of long grasses. Another chamber, of deep blue, was rich in old porcelain; another, hung with tapestry, bristled with old armor, and every sort of sword and knife arranged in figures, daisies of radiating daggers, and swords and shields made into mimic suns. Everywhere that gold could be it was lavished—on doors and windows and cornices; and one room had the whole panelling breast-high, and the large fireplace, heavily gilded.In the last room they found the people they had come to see—a young couple as bright and pretty as a pair of canaries in their gilded cage.There was no other company excepta white-haired oldcanonico, who had an apartment in the palace, and who was in some way related to the family. To this clergyman Bianca, at first a little shy among strangers, took immediately, and, seated by his side, became at once on the most friendly terms with him. His sweet and dignified manner, and the pleasure he showed in her evident confidence, were very pleasant to see. She told him all her story that could be told to any one, what she had seen and what she wished to see, and answered his questions with a childlike frankness; and, in return, he showed his interest in her by the number of his questions, and promised her all sorts of favors.There was something peculiarly attractive and beautiful in this man, in whom were united the sacredness of a holy vocation, the venerableness of age and of a pure and unstained character, and the graciousness of an accomplished gentleman.“I think you will all like to hear of something which I saw at the Vatican this morning,” he said when the conversation became more general. “I was presenting two French ladies. The audience was small, and among the persons present were the superior of the nuns of the Trinità dei Monti, and a younger nun of her community who had come with her as companion. This young nun had for several years been afflicted with a stiffening of the right hand and arm which drew them close to the breast, rendering them of course perfectly useless as well as painful. Before starting, the superior had told her to put a black glove on this right hand, so that it should not show so much, as her black habit and veil would render it less prominent than if it were bare; but when theyhad gone a part of the way the nun begged permission to take the glove off. The superior objected, saying that it might be unpleasant to the Holy Father to see her hand in that position, the fingers stiffened as they were. The nun said nothing for a while, but, when they had nearly reached the Vatican, begged again, still more earnestly, to be permitted to remove the glove. This time the superior consented. Well, they went in, and the audience was about over, when, in giving his benediction, the Pope observed that the young nun blessed herself with her left hand.“‘Filuola mia, why do you not bless yourself with your right hand?’ he asked.“‘Beato padre,’ she replied, ‘I cannot move my right hand; but if you would do me the grace—’ She said no more, but looked at him with imploring eyes.“He was silent a moment, then he said, ‘Pray!’ and covered his face with his hands, as if praying or recollecting himself. Looking at her again then, he told her to bless herself with her right hand.“‘But,santo padre, I cannot move my right hand,’ she said.“He persisted: ‘Nevertheless, do as I bid you.’“The superior took the nun’s right hand, and, lifting it for her, made a sort of cross with it.“‘Pray again,’ said the Holy Father, and hid his face a second time, and seemed to pray.“‘Now bless yourself with your right hand, and do it without help,’ he said.“She immediately lifted her hand and made the sign of the cross on her forehead and breast as freely as if nothing had ever ailed her. She was cured.”The prelate told his story withsimplicity and in a soft and slightly tremulous voice, affected by the sacred and tender scene he had so lately witnessed, and his audience exclaimed with delight. None of them, except the two American gentlemen and Isabel, were at all surprised. Too many such tales are known in Rome of PiusIX.to excite astonishment.“I have seen the good nun this afternoon,” he continued, “and she is perfectly happy. She can play on the piano again, and do everything just as before.”Finishing, he nodded toward the door, where a servant was standing, and presently rose to take leave. His evening visits never exceeded an hour, and, since he did not like to disturb the pleasure of social intercourse with the thought of going, a servant was always instructed to intimate to him when the hour was past.“The only parting which I wish to foresee and prepare for is the final one,” he said smilingly.“What a terrible sound that expression ‘final parting’ has!” Bianca exclaimed, seeming to be already pained at the thought of losing this new friend.“That is because you interpret it wrongly,” he replied, with a kind glance at her. “You know it does not mean everlasting separation, but that there are to be no more partings, because after the next meeting we need never part again. It is simply the end of a long pain.”He gave her his hand, which she kissed as naturally as an Italian would have done, though it was the first time she had rendered that homage to any one.When he had gone, the company went up to theloggia, which was one of the attractions of the house.“You see we have a private stairway,”the Contessa M—— said, opening a narrow door hidden in the panelling of the room they had been sitting in. “But it is so very narrow, enclosed in the thickness of the wall, that I will not ask you to go by it.”“I do wish she would let us go this way, though,” Isabel whispered to the Signora. “How romantic it is! Who knows who may have slipped up or down that stair in the wall, who may have stood listening behind the panel while people were talking in thesala, and what may have been revealed or hidden there? It is like a chapter out of a tragical story—one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s, for example. Do you think we might not go up?”Their hostess had, however, already led the way to a more commodious stair, and they could but follow. Besides, it is only in very romantic stories that ladies in beautiful silk and gauze dresses can go through secret and narrow stairways, cobwebbed attics, and dusty, haunted chambers, without detriment to their toilets, and the youngcontessawore that evening a lace flounce which she might not care to injure even for the sake of hospitality.They passed through room after room, each worthy of a palace, mounted stair after stair, one servant preceding them with a lamp, and another following, walked over the roof of a part of the palace, climbed another stair, and came out on theloggia, or highest house-top.The scene was enchanting; for the whole city was visible, and, by one of those kaleidoscopic changes constantly seen in a town built on hills, the city looked from here lo be situated in a round basin rising evenly on all sides to the tree-fringedhorizon. The grand front ofSt.Peter’s was scarcely a stone’s throw from them, apparently, and the two fountains of the moonlighted piazza stood wavering and white. It was not difficult to imagine them two angels standing there with garments softly waving in the night air.Mr. Vane paused a moment at the Signora’s side. “I perceive more clearly every day why you may well be unwilling to leave Rome,” he said. “I wonder I could ever have expected it.”“And yet it never appeared to me easier,” she replied very gently. “I have had all the happiness that can be had here, and ‘enough is as good as a feast,’ you know.”She meant to please him, yet she fancied that he frowned slightly. He said no more, however, but stood looking about, and, after a moment, joined Isabel, with whom the young couple were having a lively conversation.The Signora felt hurt. It seemed that Mr. Vane was losing confidence in her and becoming every day more distant. For a week or more she had felt that he was withdrawing his friendship from her, and changing in many ways. When had she heard a jest from him, or seen in him that quiet and deep contentment which he had shown at first? She had half a mind to ask him what the matter was. Perhaps she would some time, if opportunity favored. Meantime, it would be wiser not to distress herself. And just as she came to this conclusion an interpretation of his remark suggested itself to her that made the blood rush to her face painfully. Had he remembered with annoyance that half-proposal of his, and, either to remove any lingering pity she might feel for him or to savehis own pride, wished her to understand that it had been the impulse of the moment, and that he no longer entertained the wish to be more than a friend to her? In such a case her reply, with its hint of a possible change in her, had been most unfortunate.There was one moment of cruel doubt and mortification, then she put the subject resolutely away. “I have been neither unkind nor bold nor dishonorable, and I have therefore nothing to be ashamed of,” she said to herself.Meantime, Marion had stopped near Bianca, who stood looking at her father and the Signora. “How beautiful the Signora is!” he said. “Do you see that the golden tinge in her hair is visible even in the moonlight? And her eyes are the color of the Borghese violets she loves so much. I sometimes think that a rather tall and noble-looking woman like her should always beblonde, and that dark eyes belong to the slight and graceful ones.”“We have always thought her beautiful,” she replied. “But we are so fond of her that we should admire her if no one else did. You must remember how we always praised her to you.”He had been wondering how she would like having the Signora for a step-mother, and if she saw the likelihood of it. Perceiving a slight reserve in her speech, he did not pursue the subject, but stood looking at her a moment. Since he was silent, she glanced up in his face to see what it meant—if he were dissatisfied, perhaps, with her reply, or if he had taken any notice of it. He was certainly taking notice of her, and so close a notice that her eyes dropped again under it.A quick glance showed him that he should have another minute uninterruptedwith her, and he spoke: “Dear Bianca, I came to Europe to seek you. When I found in Rome that you had gone into the country for a visit, I could not wait, but followed you. I went to your lodgings in Frascati, and learned that you had all gone up to Tusculum. I meant to watch, and meet you as you came down, and know by your first glance at me if I was as welcome as I could wish to be. I had with me the spy-glass that I always take into the country, and, as I swept the country with it, I espied a little party standing under the wall of the Cappucini villa on the Tusculan hill. One of their number had climbed the steps of the shrine there to decorate it, and, just as I recognized her, she turned and stepped down toward me. The glass was so clear and strong that she seemed stepping within my reach, and to me. I accepted it as a good omen, and returned to Rome content. I think you know me well enough to be sure that this is no trifling fancy, and that, if you can put your hand in mine, with the help of God, I will never allow you to regret it. Was my omen false?”She listened with her lovely face lifted and lighted, and, when he ended, uttered a soft little exclamation, “O Marion!” and gave him her hand.“How beautifulSt.Peter’s is by this light!” Mr. Vane said, glancing round at them from the other side of theloggia, whither he had gone.His glance became a gaze as he saw them coming toward him; for Marion held openly the hand that Bianca had given him, and led her to her father. “Are you willing, sir?” he asked in a low voice.The others were about joining them, and Mr. Vane could only press their two hands together.He glanced sharply at the Signora as she approached, and saw her face flash out in a swift smile when she caught sight of their position.“I have been a fool,” he muttered.“Everything is beautiful by this light,” Marion said, with a smile that gave a double meaning to his rather tardy answer.When they started for home, they found that, by some happy mistake, the cab had been sent away, and there was no other in sight, so that the simplest way was for them all to return in thecalèche, crowding a little. The crowding was effected by Bianca sitting on the front seat between her father and lover. Leaning back there, she gave herself up to a delicious silence, only half-listening, except when Marion spoke, then drinking in every word. What a wonderful thing it was that here, by her side, sat her future husband, the man to whom she was to be united for ever and ever! Her life, as she thought, swung round into a harmony unknown to it for a long time, never known in its perfection till now. Looking forward, she had no fear. Nothing but death could separate them, and death must come to all. Let it come sooner or later, when God should appoint; she could bear it for him or for herself. She was full of courage and thankfulness, and ready now to live a full life, and begin to do some good in the world.Mr. Vane spoke of the young woman he had seen that afternoon in the little church of Sant’Antonino. “She made an impression on me,” he said. “She set me thinking; or, rather, the sight of her condensed some floating impressions in my mind into thoughts. She was a figure that almost any well-dressed lady or gentlemanwould smile at involuntarily, if they did not pity her. But looking into her face, when she was serious and thought herself unobserved, I found it an uncommon one. I fancied there was something enthusiastic and aspiring in her, and that her ridiculous dress was an abortive expression of a fine impulse. She wanted to do or be something more and better than she had yet done or been; and having, perhaps, no sympathy from any one, and no education to assist her, knew not how to act, and thought more of getting out of the position she was in than of choosing properly what change she should make. Fancy how easily a girl of uneducated mind and tastes, and of an enthusiastic disposition, might make such an absurd attempt. She is, perhaps, disgusted with the sordidness and vulgarity of her life, and believes that the ideal life is that which appears beautiful to the eyes. She has heard, maybe has read, a little of great deeds and heroic adventures, and she associates them always with the well-dressed and the high-living. She thinks, very likely, that the noble have always noble thoughts, and that beautiful sentiments go with beautiful dresses. And so the poor thing cuts her dowdy petticoat into a train, and puts a cheap feather in her hat, and fancies that she is nearer the sublime. I don’t believe she really sees the trumpery things when she puts them on. She is looking at them through a thousand visions, and sees the velvet train of some heroine, and the jewelled cap and feather she wore. Poor thing! These visions of hers cannot, however, hide the sneering laugh from her, nor make her deaf to the scornful word; and I have an impression that to-night she took off her stage-robes with a bitterheart—unless, indeed, the Benediction consoled her.”Isabel looked at her father with a steady and serious gaze while he was speaking, and, the moment he ended, said to him with an air of conviction: “Papa, you have the best heart in the world.”He laughed a little, but seemed to be touched by this tribute. “I am glad you think so, my daughter,” he said. “Indeed, I am particularly glad just now, for a reason I will tell you, if you come here a moment.”She leaned forward instantly on to his knees, and put her cheek close to his face.“Because,” he whispered, “my other daughter thinks that there’s a certain heart worth more than mine.”“Whose?” she demanded in an indignant whisper.“Marion’s.”“You don’t mean—” she exclaimed, and glanced round at her sister.“You’re the only one of the family who didn’t know it, and I don’t want you slighted,” he replied. “It’s a settled affair.”Isabel threw her arms around her sister’s neck and kissed her. “I never dreamed of such a thing,” she said; “but I am delighted all the same. You’re a million times welcome into the family, Marion. But I want you to understand that you are not better than papa.”By this they had reached home, just as the soft bells of their basilica were striking midnight.When they had said good-night to Marion and gone up-stairs, all turned with smiling faces to Bianca, and gathered about her, waiting one moment to see who should speak first, or if the congratulation was to be silent. By some slightmotion or look she imposed silence, at the same time that her face expressed the sweetest happiness and gratitude.“That dearcanonicohas given me an invitation for us all to go next week and hear his Mass in the crypt ofSt.Peter’s,” she said. “Our number is just right; for only five can go at a time. We are to be there at eight o’clock.”“Am I included?” Mr. Vane asked.“O papa!” Bianca turned to him, and, putting her hand in his arm, leaned against his shoulder. No plan of hers could be perfect that did not include him; yet the cruel thought flashed through her mind, in spite of her love for him, that in the crypt ofSt.Peter, next to Calvary the most regally sacred spot on earth, a Protestant was singularly out of place, and that no one should enter there who did not bow toSt.Peter as the Prince of the Apostles and the holder of the awful keys.The question produced a momentary painful embarrassment in the others, too, by reminding them strongly of that difference of faith which they sometimes were able to quite forget.“My little girl must not have a cloud on her sky to-night,” the father said tenderly. “What is wanting to your happiness, Bianca?”“That you should be a Catholic,” she replied, trembling; for, with all their affection and confidence, she had never presumed to speak to him on the subject.“You have your wish,” he answered.She looked at him doubtfully, but did not dare to say a word.“I am in earnest, children,” he said, feeling a hand clinging to his other arm. “I was baptized this morning at the American College.”Not a word was said, but on either side his daughters surrounded him with their arms, and pressed their faces to his breast.When at length they remembered to look for the Signora, she had disappeared.TO BE CONTINUED.
SIX SUNNY MONTHS.BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.CHAPTERIX.A BRIGHT EVENING.Everybodyknows the great sights of Rome by repute, if not by sight, and it may safely be said that no one cares to hear more of them in the way of description. Indeed, seeing them first, we almost regret having heard so much, and find it difficult to free the real object from thedébrisof our preconceptions. There is, however, an endless number of less notable objects, little bits here and there—a stair, a street, a door-way, or garden, half rough, or almost altogether rough, but with some beautiful point, like a gem that has had one facet only cut. These, besides their own beauty, have the charm of freshness. The stale, useful guide-book, and the weary tribe of tourists, know them not.One of these unspoilt places is to be found almost next door tocasa Ottant’Otto. It is a chapel attached to an Augustinian convent in which the changed times have left only onefratewith his attendant lay brother. The chapel has a rough brick floor, and large piers of stone and mortar supporting, most unnecessarily, the white-washed roof, and the walls at either side are painted with a few large frescos of saints. There are two chapels only, one at each side of the principal altar, adorned with such poor little bravery as thefratiand the frequenters of their church—nearly all beggars, or very poor—could afford. The chapel has, however,one beauty—a Madonna and Child over the high altar. The Mother, of an angelic and flower-like beauty, holds the Infant forward toward the spectator, and the Infant, radiant with a sacred sweetness, extends his right hand, the two fingers open in benediction.Mass is said here early in the morning, and a Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament given every Tuesday evening an hour beforeAve Maria, the bells ringing always three times for each service.The Signora had spoken at home of this little church of Sant’Antonino, and had laughingly called the attention of the family to the slipshod ringing of the Angelus, where the different divisions of strokes, the bell being swung from below, “spilled over,” as she expressed it, in a number of fainter strokes before and after the regular ones. “But it is a dear little place to go to,” she said. “There one finds the Lord as one might have found him when on earth visibly—in the midst of the poor, with but few followers, and no splendor of circumstance to take one’s eyes away from him. And sometimes, if one’s disposition be fortunate, his presence overflows the place.”Coming homeward alone, one evening, just as the bell rang, Mr. Vane stepped into the chapel, and, after hesitating a moment inside the door, went up the side aisle and seated himself in a corner. Hehad been there more than once early in the morning, but this was his first evening visit, and he did not care, for several reasons, to encounter any of his family, should they come.The congregation was, as the Signora had said, poor enough. There were a few old women, with kerchiefs on their heads; a sober, decent man, who hid himself in a retired corner, and knelt with his hands covering his face during the whole service; a lame old man, with a worn and sorrowful face; and a young mother, with an infant in her arms and two little ones clinging to her skirts.Not one of these paid the slightest attention to the others, or showed any consciousness of being, or expecting to be, observed. All looked toward the altar, on which the Host was now exposed, and all prayed with a fervor which could not but communicate itself to the spectator; for it was the quiet fervor of faith and habit, and was not excited by beautiful sights, or music, or the presence of a crowd. They beheld the mysterious token of the Holy Presence, and the Madonna—the Lady of Health, they called her—and worshipped, as untroubled by vanity as by doubt.The two little ones whispered and played behind their mother’s back, but no one was disturbed by them. No one ever hushes the play of children in a Roman church. The infant crowed and prattled at first, and pulled the kerchief from its mother’s head; but espying presently the candles, and hearing the organ and voices, it fell into a trance, divided between staring and listening, which held it motionless till the service was over. Rather late came a young woman dressed in an absurd travesty of theprevailing fashion, with a cheap soiled skirt trailing behind her, a hideous tunic pulled in about her and tied behind in that style that gives a woman the appearance of one trying to walk in a sack, and a bonnet made up of odds and ends of ribbon and flowers and feathers pitiable to see. But the poor thing had donned this miserable finery with no worse intention than that any lady has when assuming Worth’s last costume, and, hearing the voice of prayer as she passed, had done what the lady of fashion would not, perhaps, have done—obeyed its summons, and entered modestly and humbly the presence of God. Perhaps it was the one pleasure in a hard life, that occasional promenade in what she conceived to be a fine dress; perhaps she had been pleased, and was thankful for it, as we sometimes are for pleasures no more harmless; it may be she was disappointed and had come to find comfort. Who knows?Mr. Vane looked intently at this girl a few minutes in a way he had, something penetrating in his scrutiny, yet nothing offensive; for it was as far removed from impertinent curiosity as from a too familiar sympathy. Then the Litany recalled him. As he listened to it, he thought that he had never heard music at once so good and so bad. The organ was like a sweet, courageous soul in an infirm body. All the wheezing and creaking of the bellows could not prevent the tones from being melodious. How many there were in the choir he could not tell. The absurd little organ-loft over the door, reached by a ladder in full view at the side, had so high a screen that the singers were quite hidden. They sounded like a host, however, for their voicesechoed and reverberated from arch to arch and from end to end of the chapel, so that, without the aid of sight, it was hard to know where the sound had its origin; and when, at every fourth verse, the priest and congregation took up the song, the air literally trembled with the force of it. Mr. Vane fancied he felt his hair stir.His heart stirred, most certainly; for the power and earnestness of the singing, which made a mere cultivated vocalism trivial and tame, and perhaps the sustained high pitch of it—all contained within four notes—touched the chord of the sublime. They sang the titles of the Virgin-Mother, calling on her, by every tender and every glorious privilege of hers, to pray for them; and their prayer was no more the part of an oft-repeated ceremony, but the cry of souls that might each or all, in an instant, be struggling in the waves of death. Life itself grew suddenly awful while he listened, and he remembered that salvation is to be “worked out in fear and trembling.”He lifted his eyes to the picture over the altar, and it was no longer a picture. The figures floated before him in the misty golden light of many candles, as if there were blood in their veins and meaning in their faces. The Mother extended her Child, and the Child blessed them, and both listened. She was the Mystical Rose, the Morning Star; she was the Help of the weak, the Mother of divine Grace. They sang her glories, and this listener from a far land forgot the narrow walls that hemmed him in, and saw only those faces, and felt, as it were, the universe rock with acclamations. She was a queen, and under her feet, and about her, bearing her up, wereangels, prophets, martyrs, confessors, and patriarchs. Their wings, wide-spread and waving; their garments of light, as varied in hue as the rainbow; their radiant faces were like the crowding clouds of sunset; and over them all, buoyant, glowing with celestial sweetness and joy, floated the woman crowned with stars, the only human being whom sin had never dared to touch. The stars swam about her head like golden bees about a flower; and as a flower curls its petals down, half hiding, half revealing, the shining heart which is its source and life, so the Mother bent above and clasped the Infant. In the centre of this vision was the Blessed Sacrament exposed, more marvellous than any vision, more real than any other tangible thing; so that Imagination was bound to Faith as wings to the shoulders of an angel.There was a little stir in one corner of the chapel; for the strange gentleman had nearly fallen from his chair, and a lay brother, passing at the moment, supported him, and asked what he would have and what ailed him.The gentleman replied that nothing ailed him, that he needed nothing but fresher air, and he immediately recovered so far as to go out without assistance. He had, indeed, been more self-forgetting and entranced than fainting, and even when he stood on the sidewalk, with familiar sights and sounds all about, could hardly remember where he was. He walked a little way up the hill opposite, and stood looking absently along a cross-street at the other end of which a new Gothic church was in progress.A man who had been standing near approached him with an insinuating smile. “Our church is gettingalong rapidly,” he said in English, appearing to know whom he addressed. “We shall soon have divine service in it, I hope.”“Divine service!” repeated Mr. Vane rather absently, not having looked at the meeting-house, and scarcely knowing what was being said to him. “What divine service?”“Oh! the Protestant, of course,” the stranger answered with great suavity. “I am a minister of the Gospel.”“What Gospel?” inquired Mr. Vane, looking at the speaker with the air of one who listens patiently to nonsense.The man stared. “The Gospel of Christ. There is no other.” He knew who Mr. Vane was, and had expected to be himself recognized. “It is time the Gospel should be preached in this wicked and idolatrous city.”“Is it worse than other cities?” Mr. Vane asked calmly. “Most cities are wicked, but few cities have saints in them, as this has. We are told that the wheat and the tares shall grow together till the final harvest. As for your religion”—he stretched his hand to a load of straw that was passing, and drew a handful out—“it has no more Gospel in it than there is wheat in that straw.”The rattling bells of Sant’Antonino were ringing for theTantum Ergo. He turned, without another word, and went back, kneeling just within the door till the Benediction was over.When he went into the house the Signora was singing the “He was despised and rejected of men,” from theMessiah. Before her on the piano stood a picture that had just been sent her—her favorite devotional picture, which she hadlong been trying to get. Outside a door, overgrown with vines and weeds, and fastened by a bolt, stood the Lord, waiting sorrowfully and patiently, listening if his knock would be answered. Solitude and the damp shades of night were all about him, the stars looked cold and far away, and the lantern he held at his side, faintly lighting his face, showed through what rough, dark ways he had come to that inhospitable heart. Underneath was written: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.”The Signora was singing, “And we hid, as it were, our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemed him not,” tears rolling down her face, her eyes fixed on the picture. Finishing, scarcely uttering, indeed, the last word, she started up and kissed the picture in a passion, then, hurrying across the room, flung the door wide.“Open every door in the house!” she cried out.Bianca, surprised but sympathizing, simply obeyed, and pushed open the door near her; Isabel exclaimed, “Dear Signora!” and seemed half frightened. Mr. Vane stood silent and looked at the picture.“Oh! I know it is figurative and means the heart!” the Signora went on, as if some one had reproved her. “But when we do something material, we know that we have done it. When we think we have done a spiritual good, how can we know that it is worth anything for us—that the motive was not selfish? If, for example, the Lord should come here now, poor and hungry, and knock at my door, I would serve him on my knees; but if I should say I love him, who knows if it would be true?”“Signora mia!” It was a thinand feeble voice, but she heard it through the passion of her talk, and, turning, saw on the threshold an old man, who stood trembling, hat in hand, and leaning against the side of the door for support. He had followed Mr. Vane home from the chapel to beg for alms, but had not been able to reach or make him hear or understand before the door was shut. He was going painfully away again, when it was flung open by the Signora.She went to him with her hands outstretched. “Enter, in the name of the Lord,” she said joyfully, and led him to a chair. Kind as she was invariably to the poor, this one she looked on as almost a miraculous guest. He had come at the very moment when her heart was breaking to do some active good, as if her wish had called him, or as if the Lord she compassionated had taken his form to prove her.Never was a beggar more welcomed, more tenderly questioned as to his needs. He was fed as, probably, he had never been fed before; for the Signora gave him of what had been prepared for her own table, and served him like an honored guest.He was pleased, but did not seem to be either surprised or embarrassed. He ate and drank rather lightly, and, without being bidden, put in a leathern pocket he wore what was left of the food. There was no air of greediness in the act, but rather an intimation that no one would think of eating what he had left, and that what had been offered him must not be wasted. When Mr. Vane gave him some decent clothing in place of his faded rags, he was grateful, but by no means elated. How he looked was to him a matter of the smallest possible consequence. He could feel hunger,thirst, and cold, but pride or vanity he knew not. His body, ugly, emaciated, and diseased, obtained from him no attention, except when it could obscure and torment his mind with its own torments. He never thought for it, but waited till it called. When the sisters gave him money, he looked at them earnestly, with his dim and watery eyes, and wished that the Madonna might ever accompany them. He did not predict for them riches or happiness, but only that gracious company. When the Signora bade him come to her every day for a loaf of bread and a glass of wine, he thanked her in the same way. Evidently he understood that what he was receiving was a heavenly charity, of which God was the motive and reward, and that he had, personally, nothing to do with it, except as he profited by it. But he had, indeed, more to do with it than he believed; for it was impossible that kind hearts should remain unmoved by the sight of such forlorn poverty and suffering.They questioned him about his life and circumstances. He was quite alone. One son he had had, who went to some foreign country years before, and had never been heard of since. He supposed that he must have died on the passage or immediately on arriving; for Filippo had promised to write and send for him, or send him money, and nothing but death would have made him break his promise to his father. His wife had died more than ten years before; and he had no one left to care for him. Where was his home? they asked. Well, he slept in the lodgings provided by the city, because they did not allow people to sleep in the street. He used to sleep on one of the steps of the church ofAra Cœliand heliked it better, for he could go off by himself. Still, the government gave them straw to sleep on, and that was something. It was rather cold on the steps, even in summer.“But where do you go in the daytime?” they pursued, finding the idea of no house or home of any description a hard one to take in.He went into churches sometimes; at others he sat on a house-step, and stood under the eaves if it rained. He was indeed able to say, “The birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes,” but he had not where to lay his head.“I cannot listen to any more,” the Signora said. “Do you know, my friends, what seems my duty to do? Well, I will tell you. At this moment it seems to me that I should send you all to a hotel, or to any place you can find, and fill half my rooms with little beds for poor men, and the other half with beds for poor women, and spend all my time and money in taking care of them. Gloves, and a bonnet, and all sorts of luxuries look to me like sins, in the light of this man’s story; and as to having more than one room for myself, it is monstrous. Either pack your trunks at once, or send this fascinating wretch off to sleep on the municipal straw.”“You can’t send us off; for you have promised to keep us as long as we stay in Rome,” Isabel said triumphantly. “If you should turn your house into a refuge, you would be doing evil that good may come, by breaking a promise.”When their guest had gone and they were sitting at supper, the conversation still turned on the Roman poor and their manner of receiving charity, and Mr. Vane expressed his astonishment that so little of servility should be mingled with this constant begging.“You must remember,” the Signora said, “that the mendicant religious orders have given a sort of dignity to poverty, and, though theirs is of a different kind, the people do not distinguish. Then among the many voluntary poor there are two who are particularly cherished in Rome—Santa Francesca Romana and Blessed Labré. The women sitting at the church-door could tell you, if you should try to shame them, that Santa Francesca once sat at a church-door and begged from early morning tillAve Maria; and the poor who ask you for acentessimoin the street know that Labré went about begging, and in clothes as filthy and ragged as any of theirs. Of course they do not distinguish the motives, and have, many of them, made a Christian virtue an excuse for a miserable vice; but,come si fa?as they would say. We cannot spend our time in arguing with them; and, if we should, it would be time thrown away. They have no comprehension of what we call independence; and they think that the blessings they bestow, and the merit we acquire in giving to them, are worth far more than the paltry copper coin they receive from us, and that we are, in reality, their debtors.”They hurried their supper a little; for they were going out, and it was already nine o’clock. Before they had risen from the table Marion came in to accompany them, and the carriages were at the door.This matter of the carriages, and the division of her party in them, simple as it seemed, had given the Signora some thought. She was afraid that some new complication might arise between Marion and Bianca, and wished earnestly that they should come to an understandingimmediately. Nothing appeared to be easier, yet every day was a succession of little obstacles to their speaking together in that accidental privacy which they would naturally prefer. Still, she could not well put them in a carriage together. It would look too pointed. There seemed no other way, then, than to take him in the cab with her, and give thecalècheto Mr. Vane and his daughter. That any one should suppose that an attraction was growing up between her and this new friend had never occurred to her mind; yet both Mr. Vane and Bianca saw in every word and act of hers a new proof of it. Any one with eyes could see that Marion and Bianca liked each other particularly, the Signora believed. One had but to watch a few minutes, and it became evident that in company each was always so placed as to see and, if possible, to hear the other; and though one might not detect them looking directly, yet sometimes a glance, passing from one part of the room to another, swooped like a bird, and caught the one object it wished to seize within its ken. Yet Bianca provoked her somewhat. The girl was too serious and gentle, too discouragingly friendly. Why, thought the Signora, with that admirable good sense which we sometimes have when we think for others—why, when two persons are admirably fitted for each other, and everybody is willing, and neither of them can quite set about anything till the matter is decided; and when the gentleman, not to be too abrupt in his proposal, or expose himself to an unnecessary mortification, gives the lady that gentle, questioning glance which says so plainly, “May I speak?”—why, in the name of common sense, should she not drop herpretty head in token of assent, and allow at least a hint of a smile to encourage him? Echo answered, Why?The upper air was silver with a late moonrise when they went out, while below the lamps burned goldenly through a velvety darkness. Their own street was quiet; but there was a crowd on Monte Cavallo. The glimpse they caught of the piazza of the Trevi fountain in passing showed it full and bright, and the Corso, when they reached it, was swarming with people and brilliant with lighted shops.“What contrasts there are in Roman life, even in its most quiet times!” Marion said. “I wonder if any one ever was bored here? I doubt it. How well I remember one day of my last visit, three years ago now! It was a bright February afternoon, and I went out for a walk in the Campagna, and saw the ground covered with flowers, and myriads of birds flying about and singing. Coming back to town out of that verdant quiet, I went to the Corso. It was roaring with the height of the last day of Carnival. It looked as if all the world had gone mad with reckless mirth, and, by a common consent, were pressing to that one spot. It was with difficulty I got across the street, shaking a monkey from one arm, and escaping from the lasso of a huge devil on the other side. A few minutes brought me to the Gesù. There what a scene! The church all in darkness, except the tribune, where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the midst of a blaze of candles that shone on a crowd of faces all silent and turned toward the altar. Now and then the organ played softly; now and then a quiet figure stole in and found room to kneel where it seemed therewas no room for more. It was so still that every time the heavy curtain lifted there could be heard through the whole church the rattling of the tin boxes of the beggars outside. Half an hour later I reached the Corso again, just in time to see the horses rush by like meteors between two solid walls of men and women. And, lastly, just as the stars were coming out, burst the fairy spectacle of themoccoletti, when the narrow street became like a strip cut out of the live sky, thick with dancing stars, and palpitating with the soft pulses of the Northern Lights, blue, green, rosy, and white. I could have said it was not ten minutes before it was all over and I was walking home through a silent, star-lit night. The next morning at six I went to a church and received the Lenten ashes on my forehead. I do not wonder that Romans are lazy, for their imaginations are so kept on thequi vivethat muscular action must necessarily be distasteful. They cannot help regarding life as afesta.”They reached their destination, a palace close toSt.Peter’s. Two servants stood bowing in theportone, and a little girl, the daughter of one, presented each of the ladies with a bunch of orange-blossoms. They passed into the court, where a fountain tossed its sparkling arch of water, sprinkling the greensward, which here replaced the usual pavement, and went up the grand stairs. The groined arches over their heads were glowing with color, trees, flowers, vines, birds, and butterflies—not an inch of wall was unpainted. Pots of flowering plants stood at the ends of the stairs and at the landings, and statues showed whitely through their fragrant screens. Here and there a lamp dropped from a gilt chain, and softly illuminedthis superb entrance. At the end of the first entry two servants held back the crimson velvet curtains of an open door, receiving the visitors into a chamber furnished in crimson, the walls of crimson and gold, the ceiling painted with sunset clouds, and a crescent of candles burning in front of crystal lustres. Reaching the next door, they looked down a vista composed of twelve or fourteen rooms, all softly lighted except the last, which was brilliant. The light struck along on door after door, all gilded, and set with mirrors at one side and paintings at the other, the curtains of silk or velvet drawn back on gilt spears or arrows. The floors were mostly uncovered, some of them of rare marbles or mosaics; a few were partially covered with thick Persian mats or carpets. One room was furnished in gold-colored satin, and profusely ornamented with the most delicate porcelain; a second was of a rich sea-green, sparkling all through with crystal ornaments, the chandelier of Venetian glass, the cornice made of large shells, and the ceiling painted in coral branches, tangled full of long grasses. Another chamber, of deep blue, was rich in old porcelain; another, hung with tapestry, bristled with old armor, and every sort of sword and knife arranged in figures, daisies of radiating daggers, and swords and shields made into mimic suns. Everywhere that gold could be it was lavished—on doors and windows and cornices; and one room had the whole panelling breast-high, and the large fireplace, heavily gilded.In the last room they found the people they had come to see—a young couple as bright and pretty as a pair of canaries in their gilded cage.There was no other company excepta white-haired oldcanonico, who had an apartment in the palace, and who was in some way related to the family. To this clergyman Bianca, at first a little shy among strangers, took immediately, and, seated by his side, became at once on the most friendly terms with him. His sweet and dignified manner, and the pleasure he showed in her evident confidence, were very pleasant to see. She told him all her story that could be told to any one, what she had seen and what she wished to see, and answered his questions with a childlike frankness; and, in return, he showed his interest in her by the number of his questions, and promised her all sorts of favors.There was something peculiarly attractive and beautiful in this man, in whom were united the sacredness of a holy vocation, the venerableness of age and of a pure and unstained character, and the graciousness of an accomplished gentleman.“I think you will all like to hear of something which I saw at the Vatican this morning,” he said when the conversation became more general. “I was presenting two French ladies. The audience was small, and among the persons present were the superior of the nuns of the Trinità dei Monti, and a younger nun of her community who had come with her as companion. This young nun had for several years been afflicted with a stiffening of the right hand and arm which drew them close to the breast, rendering them of course perfectly useless as well as painful. Before starting, the superior had told her to put a black glove on this right hand, so that it should not show so much, as her black habit and veil would render it less prominent than if it were bare; but when theyhad gone a part of the way the nun begged permission to take the glove off. The superior objected, saying that it might be unpleasant to the Holy Father to see her hand in that position, the fingers stiffened as they were. The nun said nothing for a while, but, when they had nearly reached the Vatican, begged again, still more earnestly, to be permitted to remove the glove. This time the superior consented. Well, they went in, and the audience was about over, when, in giving his benediction, the Pope observed that the young nun blessed herself with her left hand.“‘Filuola mia, why do you not bless yourself with your right hand?’ he asked.“‘Beato padre,’ she replied, ‘I cannot move my right hand; but if you would do me the grace—’ She said no more, but looked at him with imploring eyes.“He was silent a moment, then he said, ‘Pray!’ and covered his face with his hands, as if praying or recollecting himself. Looking at her again then, he told her to bless herself with her right hand.“‘But,santo padre, I cannot move my right hand,’ she said.“He persisted: ‘Nevertheless, do as I bid you.’“The superior took the nun’s right hand, and, lifting it for her, made a sort of cross with it.“‘Pray again,’ said the Holy Father, and hid his face a second time, and seemed to pray.“‘Now bless yourself with your right hand, and do it without help,’ he said.“She immediately lifted her hand and made the sign of the cross on her forehead and breast as freely as if nothing had ever ailed her. She was cured.”The prelate told his story withsimplicity and in a soft and slightly tremulous voice, affected by the sacred and tender scene he had so lately witnessed, and his audience exclaimed with delight. None of them, except the two American gentlemen and Isabel, were at all surprised. Too many such tales are known in Rome of PiusIX.to excite astonishment.“I have seen the good nun this afternoon,” he continued, “and she is perfectly happy. She can play on the piano again, and do everything just as before.”Finishing, he nodded toward the door, where a servant was standing, and presently rose to take leave. His evening visits never exceeded an hour, and, since he did not like to disturb the pleasure of social intercourse with the thought of going, a servant was always instructed to intimate to him when the hour was past.“The only parting which I wish to foresee and prepare for is the final one,” he said smilingly.“What a terrible sound that expression ‘final parting’ has!” Bianca exclaimed, seeming to be already pained at the thought of losing this new friend.“That is because you interpret it wrongly,” he replied, with a kind glance at her. “You know it does not mean everlasting separation, but that there are to be no more partings, because after the next meeting we need never part again. It is simply the end of a long pain.”He gave her his hand, which she kissed as naturally as an Italian would have done, though it was the first time she had rendered that homage to any one.When he had gone, the company went up to theloggia, which was one of the attractions of the house.“You see we have a private stairway,”the Contessa M—— said, opening a narrow door hidden in the panelling of the room they had been sitting in. “But it is so very narrow, enclosed in the thickness of the wall, that I will not ask you to go by it.”“I do wish she would let us go this way, though,” Isabel whispered to the Signora. “How romantic it is! Who knows who may have slipped up or down that stair in the wall, who may have stood listening behind the panel while people were talking in thesala, and what may have been revealed or hidden there? It is like a chapter out of a tragical story—one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s, for example. Do you think we might not go up?”Their hostess had, however, already led the way to a more commodious stair, and they could but follow. Besides, it is only in very romantic stories that ladies in beautiful silk and gauze dresses can go through secret and narrow stairways, cobwebbed attics, and dusty, haunted chambers, without detriment to their toilets, and the youngcontessawore that evening a lace flounce which she might not care to injure even for the sake of hospitality.They passed through room after room, each worthy of a palace, mounted stair after stair, one servant preceding them with a lamp, and another following, walked over the roof of a part of the palace, climbed another stair, and came out on theloggia, or highest house-top.The scene was enchanting; for the whole city was visible, and, by one of those kaleidoscopic changes constantly seen in a town built on hills, the city looked from here lo be situated in a round basin rising evenly on all sides to the tree-fringedhorizon. The grand front ofSt.Peter’s was scarcely a stone’s throw from them, apparently, and the two fountains of the moonlighted piazza stood wavering and white. It was not difficult to imagine them two angels standing there with garments softly waving in the night air.Mr. Vane paused a moment at the Signora’s side. “I perceive more clearly every day why you may well be unwilling to leave Rome,” he said. “I wonder I could ever have expected it.”“And yet it never appeared to me easier,” she replied very gently. “I have had all the happiness that can be had here, and ‘enough is as good as a feast,’ you know.”She meant to please him, yet she fancied that he frowned slightly. He said no more, however, but stood looking about, and, after a moment, joined Isabel, with whom the young couple were having a lively conversation.The Signora felt hurt. It seemed that Mr. Vane was losing confidence in her and becoming every day more distant. For a week or more she had felt that he was withdrawing his friendship from her, and changing in many ways. When had she heard a jest from him, or seen in him that quiet and deep contentment which he had shown at first? She had half a mind to ask him what the matter was. Perhaps she would some time, if opportunity favored. Meantime, it would be wiser not to distress herself. And just as she came to this conclusion an interpretation of his remark suggested itself to her that made the blood rush to her face painfully. Had he remembered with annoyance that half-proposal of his, and, either to remove any lingering pity she might feel for him or to savehis own pride, wished her to understand that it had been the impulse of the moment, and that he no longer entertained the wish to be more than a friend to her? In such a case her reply, with its hint of a possible change in her, had been most unfortunate.There was one moment of cruel doubt and mortification, then she put the subject resolutely away. “I have been neither unkind nor bold nor dishonorable, and I have therefore nothing to be ashamed of,” she said to herself.Meantime, Marion had stopped near Bianca, who stood looking at her father and the Signora. “How beautiful the Signora is!” he said. “Do you see that the golden tinge in her hair is visible even in the moonlight? And her eyes are the color of the Borghese violets she loves so much. I sometimes think that a rather tall and noble-looking woman like her should always beblonde, and that dark eyes belong to the slight and graceful ones.”“We have always thought her beautiful,” she replied. “But we are so fond of her that we should admire her if no one else did. You must remember how we always praised her to you.”He had been wondering how she would like having the Signora for a step-mother, and if she saw the likelihood of it. Perceiving a slight reserve in her speech, he did not pursue the subject, but stood looking at her a moment. Since he was silent, she glanced up in his face to see what it meant—if he were dissatisfied, perhaps, with her reply, or if he had taken any notice of it. He was certainly taking notice of her, and so close a notice that her eyes dropped again under it.A quick glance showed him that he should have another minute uninterruptedwith her, and he spoke: “Dear Bianca, I came to Europe to seek you. When I found in Rome that you had gone into the country for a visit, I could not wait, but followed you. I went to your lodgings in Frascati, and learned that you had all gone up to Tusculum. I meant to watch, and meet you as you came down, and know by your first glance at me if I was as welcome as I could wish to be. I had with me the spy-glass that I always take into the country, and, as I swept the country with it, I espied a little party standing under the wall of the Cappucini villa on the Tusculan hill. One of their number had climbed the steps of the shrine there to decorate it, and, just as I recognized her, she turned and stepped down toward me. The glass was so clear and strong that she seemed stepping within my reach, and to me. I accepted it as a good omen, and returned to Rome content. I think you know me well enough to be sure that this is no trifling fancy, and that, if you can put your hand in mine, with the help of God, I will never allow you to regret it. Was my omen false?”She listened with her lovely face lifted and lighted, and, when he ended, uttered a soft little exclamation, “O Marion!” and gave him her hand.“How beautifulSt.Peter’s is by this light!” Mr. Vane said, glancing round at them from the other side of theloggia, whither he had gone.His glance became a gaze as he saw them coming toward him; for Marion held openly the hand that Bianca had given him, and led her to her father. “Are you willing, sir?” he asked in a low voice.The others were about joining them, and Mr. Vane could only press their two hands together.He glanced sharply at the Signora as she approached, and saw her face flash out in a swift smile when she caught sight of their position.“I have been a fool,” he muttered.“Everything is beautiful by this light,” Marion said, with a smile that gave a double meaning to his rather tardy answer.When they started for home, they found that, by some happy mistake, the cab had been sent away, and there was no other in sight, so that the simplest way was for them all to return in thecalèche, crowding a little. The crowding was effected by Bianca sitting on the front seat between her father and lover. Leaning back there, she gave herself up to a delicious silence, only half-listening, except when Marion spoke, then drinking in every word. What a wonderful thing it was that here, by her side, sat her future husband, the man to whom she was to be united for ever and ever! Her life, as she thought, swung round into a harmony unknown to it for a long time, never known in its perfection till now. Looking forward, she had no fear. Nothing but death could separate them, and death must come to all. Let it come sooner or later, when God should appoint; she could bear it for him or for herself. She was full of courage and thankfulness, and ready now to live a full life, and begin to do some good in the world.Mr. Vane spoke of the young woman he had seen that afternoon in the little church of Sant’Antonino. “She made an impression on me,” he said. “She set me thinking; or, rather, the sight of her condensed some floating impressions in my mind into thoughts. She was a figure that almost any well-dressed lady or gentlemanwould smile at involuntarily, if they did not pity her. But looking into her face, when she was serious and thought herself unobserved, I found it an uncommon one. I fancied there was something enthusiastic and aspiring in her, and that her ridiculous dress was an abortive expression of a fine impulse. She wanted to do or be something more and better than she had yet done or been; and having, perhaps, no sympathy from any one, and no education to assist her, knew not how to act, and thought more of getting out of the position she was in than of choosing properly what change she should make. Fancy how easily a girl of uneducated mind and tastes, and of an enthusiastic disposition, might make such an absurd attempt. She is, perhaps, disgusted with the sordidness and vulgarity of her life, and believes that the ideal life is that which appears beautiful to the eyes. She has heard, maybe has read, a little of great deeds and heroic adventures, and she associates them always with the well-dressed and the high-living. She thinks, very likely, that the noble have always noble thoughts, and that beautiful sentiments go with beautiful dresses. And so the poor thing cuts her dowdy petticoat into a train, and puts a cheap feather in her hat, and fancies that she is nearer the sublime. I don’t believe she really sees the trumpery things when she puts them on. She is looking at them through a thousand visions, and sees the velvet train of some heroine, and the jewelled cap and feather she wore. Poor thing! These visions of hers cannot, however, hide the sneering laugh from her, nor make her deaf to the scornful word; and I have an impression that to-night she took off her stage-robes with a bitterheart—unless, indeed, the Benediction consoled her.”Isabel looked at her father with a steady and serious gaze while he was speaking, and, the moment he ended, said to him with an air of conviction: “Papa, you have the best heart in the world.”He laughed a little, but seemed to be touched by this tribute. “I am glad you think so, my daughter,” he said. “Indeed, I am particularly glad just now, for a reason I will tell you, if you come here a moment.”She leaned forward instantly on to his knees, and put her cheek close to his face.“Because,” he whispered, “my other daughter thinks that there’s a certain heart worth more than mine.”“Whose?” she demanded in an indignant whisper.“Marion’s.”“You don’t mean—” she exclaimed, and glanced round at her sister.“You’re the only one of the family who didn’t know it, and I don’t want you slighted,” he replied. “It’s a settled affair.”Isabel threw her arms around her sister’s neck and kissed her. “I never dreamed of such a thing,” she said; “but I am delighted all the same. You’re a million times welcome into the family, Marion. But I want you to understand that you are not better than papa.”By this they had reached home, just as the soft bells of their basilica were striking midnight.When they had said good-night to Marion and gone up-stairs, all turned with smiling faces to Bianca, and gathered about her, waiting one moment to see who should speak first, or if the congratulation was to be silent. By some slightmotion or look she imposed silence, at the same time that her face expressed the sweetest happiness and gratitude.“That dearcanonicohas given me an invitation for us all to go next week and hear his Mass in the crypt ofSt.Peter’s,” she said. “Our number is just right; for only five can go at a time. We are to be there at eight o’clock.”“Am I included?” Mr. Vane asked.“O papa!” Bianca turned to him, and, putting her hand in his arm, leaned against his shoulder. No plan of hers could be perfect that did not include him; yet the cruel thought flashed through her mind, in spite of her love for him, that in the crypt ofSt.Peter, next to Calvary the most regally sacred spot on earth, a Protestant was singularly out of place, and that no one should enter there who did not bow toSt.Peter as the Prince of the Apostles and the holder of the awful keys.The question produced a momentary painful embarrassment in the others, too, by reminding them strongly of that difference of faith which they sometimes were able to quite forget.“My little girl must not have a cloud on her sky to-night,” the father said tenderly. “What is wanting to your happiness, Bianca?”“That you should be a Catholic,” she replied, trembling; for, with all their affection and confidence, she had never presumed to speak to him on the subject.“You have your wish,” he answered.She looked at him doubtfully, but did not dare to say a word.“I am in earnest, children,” he said, feeling a hand clinging to his other arm. “I was baptized this morning at the American College.”Not a word was said, but on either side his daughters surrounded him with their arms, and pressed their faces to his breast.When at length they remembered to look for the Signora, she had disappeared.TO BE CONTINUED.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.
A BRIGHT EVENING.
Everybodyknows the great sights of Rome by repute, if not by sight, and it may safely be said that no one cares to hear more of them in the way of description. Indeed, seeing them first, we almost regret having heard so much, and find it difficult to free the real object from thedébrisof our preconceptions. There is, however, an endless number of less notable objects, little bits here and there—a stair, a street, a door-way, or garden, half rough, or almost altogether rough, but with some beautiful point, like a gem that has had one facet only cut. These, besides their own beauty, have the charm of freshness. The stale, useful guide-book, and the weary tribe of tourists, know them not.
One of these unspoilt places is to be found almost next door tocasa Ottant’Otto. It is a chapel attached to an Augustinian convent in which the changed times have left only onefratewith his attendant lay brother. The chapel has a rough brick floor, and large piers of stone and mortar supporting, most unnecessarily, the white-washed roof, and the walls at either side are painted with a few large frescos of saints. There are two chapels only, one at each side of the principal altar, adorned with such poor little bravery as thefratiand the frequenters of their church—nearly all beggars, or very poor—could afford. The chapel has, however,one beauty—a Madonna and Child over the high altar. The Mother, of an angelic and flower-like beauty, holds the Infant forward toward the spectator, and the Infant, radiant with a sacred sweetness, extends his right hand, the two fingers open in benediction.
Mass is said here early in the morning, and a Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament given every Tuesday evening an hour beforeAve Maria, the bells ringing always three times for each service.
The Signora had spoken at home of this little church of Sant’Antonino, and had laughingly called the attention of the family to the slipshod ringing of the Angelus, where the different divisions of strokes, the bell being swung from below, “spilled over,” as she expressed it, in a number of fainter strokes before and after the regular ones. “But it is a dear little place to go to,” she said. “There one finds the Lord as one might have found him when on earth visibly—in the midst of the poor, with but few followers, and no splendor of circumstance to take one’s eyes away from him. And sometimes, if one’s disposition be fortunate, his presence overflows the place.”
Coming homeward alone, one evening, just as the bell rang, Mr. Vane stepped into the chapel, and, after hesitating a moment inside the door, went up the side aisle and seated himself in a corner. Hehad been there more than once early in the morning, but this was his first evening visit, and he did not care, for several reasons, to encounter any of his family, should they come.
The congregation was, as the Signora had said, poor enough. There were a few old women, with kerchiefs on their heads; a sober, decent man, who hid himself in a retired corner, and knelt with his hands covering his face during the whole service; a lame old man, with a worn and sorrowful face; and a young mother, with an infant in her arms and two little ones clinging to her skirts.
Not one of these paid the slightest attention to the others, or showed any consciousness of being, or expecting to be, observed. All looked toward the altar, on which the Host was now exposed, and all prayed with a fervor which could not but communicate itself to the spectator; for it was the quiet fervor of faith and habit, and was not excited by beautiful sights, or music, or the presence of a crowd. They beheld the mysterious token of the Holy Presence, and the Madonna—the Lady of Health, they called her—and worshipped, as untroubled by vanity as by doubt.
The two little ones whispered and played behind their mother’s back, but no one was disturbed by them. No one ever hushes the play of children in a Roman church. The infant crowed and prattled at first, and pulled the kerchief from its mother’s head; but espying presently the candles, and hearing the organ and voices, it fell into a trance, divided between staring and listening, which held it motionless till the service was over. Rather late came a young woman dressed in an absurd travesty of theprevailing fashion, with a cheap soiled skirt trailing behind her, a hideous tunic pulled in about her and tied behind in that style that gives a woman the appearance of one trying to walk in a sack, and a bonnet made up of odds and ends of ribbon and flowers and feathers pitiable to see. But the poor thing had donned this miserable finery with no worse intention than that any lady has when assuming Worth’s last costume, and, hearing the voice of prayer as she passed, had done what the lady of fashion would not, perhaps, have done—obeyed its summons, and entered modestly and humbly the presence of God. Perhaps it was the one pleasure in a hard life, that occasional promenade in what she conceived to be a fine dress; perhaps she had been pleased, and was thankful for it, as we sometimes are for pleasures no more harmless; it may be she was disappointed and had come to find comfort. Who knows?
Mr. Vane looked intently at this girl a few minutes in a way he had, something penetrating in his scrutiny, yet nothing offensive; for it was as far removed from impertinent curiosity as from a too familiar sympathy. Then the Litany recalled him. As he listened to it, he thought that he had never heard music at once so good and so bad. The organ was like a sweet, courageous soul in an infirm body. All the wheezing and creaking of the bellows could not prevent the tones from being melodious. How many there were in the choir he could not tell. The absurd little organ-loft over the door, reached by a ladder in full view at the side, had so high a screen that the singers were quite hidden. They sounded like a host, however, for their voicesechoed and reverberated from arch to arch and from end to end of the chapel, so that, without the aid of sight, it was hard to know where the sound had its origin; and when, at every fourth verse, the priest and congregation took up the song, the air literally trembled with the force of it. Mr. Vane fancied he felt his hair stir.
His heart stirred, most certainly; for the power and earnestness of the singing, which made a mere cultivated vocalism trivial and tame, and perhaps the sustained high pitch of it—all contained within four notes—touched the chord of the sublime. They sang the titles of the Virgin-Mother, calling on her, by every tender and every glorious privilege of hers, to pray for them; and their prayer was no more the part of an oft-repeated ceremony, but the cry of souls that might each or all, in an instant, be struggling in the waves of death. Life itself grew suddenly awful while he listened, and he remembered that salvation is to be “worked out in fear and trembling.”
He lifted his eyes to the picture over the altar, and it was no longer a picture. The figures floated before him in the misty golden light of many candles, as if there were blood in their veins and meaning in their faces. The Mother extended her Child, and the Child blessed them, and both listened. She was the Mystical Rose, the Morning Star; she was the Help of the weak, the Mother of divine Grace. They sang her glories, and this listener from a far land forgot the narrow walls that hemmed him in, and saw only those faces, and felt, as it were, the universe rock with acclamations. She was a queen, and under her feet, and about her, bearing her up, wereangels, prophets, martyrs, confessors, and patriarchs. Their wings, wide-spread and waving; their garments of light, as varied in hue as the rainbow; their radiant faces were like the crowding clouds of sunset; and over them all, buoyant, glowing with celestial sweetness and joy, floated the woman crowned with stars, the only human being whom sin had never dared to touch. The stars swam about her head like golden bees about a flower; and as a flower curls its petals down, half hiding, half revealing, the shining heart which is its source and life, so the Mother bent above and clasped the Infant. In the centre of this vision was the Blessed Sacrament exposed, more marvellous than any vision, more real than any other tangible thing; so that Imagination was bound to Faith as wings to the shoulders of an angel.
There was a little stir in one corner of the chapel; for the strange gentleman had nearly fallen from his chair, and a lay brother, passing at the moment, supported him, and asked what he would have and what ailed him.
The gentleman replied that nothing ailed him, that he needed nothing but fresher air, and he immediately recovered so far as to go out without assistance. He had, indeed, been more self-forgetting and entranced than fainting, and even when he stood on the sidewalk, with familiar sights and sounds all about, could hardly remember where he was. He walked a little way up the hill opposite, and stood looking absently along a cross-street at the other end of which a new Gothic church was in progress.
A man who had been standing near approached him with an insinuating smile. “Our church is gettingalong rapidly,” he said in English, appearing to know whom he addressed. “We shall soon have divine service in it, I hope.”
“Divine service!” repeated Mr. Vane rather absently, not having looked at the meeting-house, and scarcely knowing what was being said to him. “What divine service?”
“Oh! the Protestant, of course,” the stranger answered with great suavity. “I am a minister of the Gospel.”
“What Gospel?” inquired Mr. Vane, looking at the speaker with the air of one who listens patiently to nonsense.
The man stared. “The Gospel of Christ. There is no other.” He knew who Mr. Vane was, and had expected to be himself recognized. “It is time the Gospel should be preached in this wicked and idolatrous city.”
“Is it worse than other cities?” Mr. Vane asked calmly. “Most cities are wicked, but few cities have saints in them, as this has. We are told that the wheat and the tares shall grow together till the final harvest. As for your religion”—he stretched his hand to a load of straw that was passing, and drew a handful out—“it has no more Gospel in it than there is wheat in that straw.”
The rattling bells of Sant’Antonino were ringing for theTantum Ergo. He turned, without another word, and went back, kneeling just within the door till the Benediction was over.
When he went into the house the Signora was singing the “He was despised and rejected of men,” from theMessiah. Before her on the piano stood a picture that had just been sent her—her favorite devotional picture, which she hadlong been trying to get. Outside a door, overgrown with vines and weeds, and fastened by a bolt, stood the Lord, waiting sorrowfully and patiently, listening if his knock would be answered. Solitude and the damp shades of night were all about him, the stars looked cold and far away, and the lantern he held at his side, faintly lighting his face, showed through what rough, dark ways he had come to that inhospitable heart. Underneath was written: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.”
The Signora was singing, “And we hid, as it were, our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemed him not,” tears rolling down her face, her eyes fixed on the picture. Finishing, scarcely uttering, indeed, the last word, she started up and kissed the picture in a passion, then, hurrying across the room, flung the door wide.
“Open every door in the house!” she cried out.
Bianca, surprised but sympathizing, simply obeyed, and pushed open the door near her; Isabel exclaimed, “Dear Signora!” and seemed half frightened. Mr. Vane stood silent and looked at the picture.
“Oh! I know it is figurative and means the heart!” the Signora went on, as if some one had reproved her. “But when we do something material, we know that we have done it. When we think we have done a spiritual good, how can we know that it is worth anything for us—that the motive was not selfish? If, for example, the Lord should come here now, poor and hungry, and knock at my door, I would serve him on my knees; but if I should say I love him, who knows if it would be true?”
“Signora mia!” It was a thinand feeble voice, but she heard it through the passion of her talk, and, turning, saw on the threshold an old man, who stood trembling, hat in hand, and leaning against the side of the door for support. He had followed Mr. Vane home from the chapel to beg for alms, but had not been able to reach or make him hear or understand before the door was shut. He was going painfully away again, when it was flung open by the Signora.
She went to him with her hands outstretched. “Enter, in the name of the Lord,” she said joyfully, and led him to a chair. Kind as she was invariably to the poor, this one she looked on as almost a miraculous guest. He had come at the very moment when her heart was breaking to do some active good, as if her wish had called him, or as if the Lord she compassionated had taken his form to prove her.
Never was a beggar more welcomed, more tenderly questioned as to his needs. He was fed as, probably, he had never been fed before; for the Signora gave him of what had been prepared for her own table, and served him like an honored guest.
He was pleased, but did not seem to be either surprised or embarrassed. He ate and drank rather lightly, and, without being bidden, put in a leathern pocket he wore what was left of the food. There was no air of greediness in the act, but rather an intimation that no one would think of eating what he had left, and that what had been offered him must not be wasted. When Mr. Vane gave him some decent clothing in place of his faded rags, he was grateful, but by no means elated. How he looked was to him a matter of the smallest possible consequence. He could feel hunger,thirst, and cold, but pride or vanity he knew not. His body, ugly, emaciated, and diseased, obtained from him no attention, except when it could obscure and torment his mind with its own torments. He never thought for it, but waited till it called. When the sisters gave him money, he looked at them earnestly, with his dim and watery eyes, and wished that the Madonna might ever accompany them. He did not predict for them riches or happiness, but only that gracious company. When the Signora bade him come to her every day for a loaf of bread and a glass of wine, he thanked her in the same way. Evidently he understood that what he was receiving was a heavenly charity, of which God was the motive and reward, and that he had, personally, nothing to do with it, except as he profited by it. But he had, indeed, more to do with it than he believed; for it was impossible that kind hearts should remain unmoved by the sight of such forlorn poverty and suffering.
They questioned him about his life and circumstances. He was quite alone. One son he had had, who went to some foreign country years before, and had never been heard of since. He supposed that he must have died on the passage or immediately on arriving; for Filippo had promised to write and send for him, or send him money, and nothing but death would have made him break his promise to his father. His wife had died more than ten years before; and he had no one left to care for him. Where was his home? they asked. Well, he slept in the lodgings provided by the city, because they did not allow people to sleep in the street. He used to sleep on one of the steps of the church ofAra Cœliand heliked it better, for he could go off by himself. Still, the government gave them straw to sleep on, and that was something. It was rather cold on the steps, even in summer.
“But where do you go in the daytime?” they pursued, finding the idea of no house or home of any description a hard one to take in.
He went into churches sometimes; at others he sat on a house-step, and stood under the eaves if it rained. He was indeed able to say, “The birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes,” but he had not where to lay his head.
“I cannot listen to any more,” the Signora said. “Do you know, my friends, what seems my duty to do? Well, I will tell you. At this moment it seems to me that I should send you all to a hotel, or to any place you can find, and fill half my rooms with little beds for poor men, and the other half with beds for poor women, and spend all my time and money in taking care of them. Gloves, and a bonnet, and all sorts of luxuries look to me like sins, in the light of this man’s story; and as to having more than one room for myself, it is monstrous. Either pack your trunks at once, or send this fascinating wretch off to sleep on the municipal straw.”
“You can’t send us off; for you have promised to keep us as long as we stay in Rome,” Isabel said triumphantly. “If you should turn your house into a refuge, you would be doing evil that good may come, by breaking a promise.”
When their guest had gone and they were sitting at supper, the conversation still turned on the Roman poor and their manner of receiving charity, and Mr. Vane expressed his astonishment that so little of servility should be mingled with this constant begging.
“You must remember,” the Signora said, “that the mendicant religious orders have given a sort of dignity to poverty, and, though theirs is of a different kind, the people do not distinguish. Then among the many voluntary poor there are two who are particularly cherished in Rome—Santa Francesca Romana and Blessed Labré. The women sitting at the church-door could tell you, if you should try to shame them, that Santa Francesca once sat at a church-door and begged from early morning tillAve Maria; and the poor who ask you for acentessimoin the street know that Labré went about begging, and in clothes as filthy and ragged as any of theirs. Of course they do not distinguish the motives, and have, many of them, made a Christian virtue an excuse for a miserable vice; but,come si fa?as they would say. We cannot spend our time in arguing with them; and, if we should, it would be time thrown away. They have no comprehension of what we call independence; and they think that the blessings they bestow, and the merit we acquire in giving to them, are worth far more than the paltry copper coin they receive from us, and that we are, in reality, their debtors.”
They hurried their supper a little; for they were going out, and it was already nine o’clock. Before they had risen from the table Marion came in to accompany them, and the carriages were at the door.
This matter of the carriages, and the division of her party in them, simple as it seemed, had given the Signora some thought. She was afraid that some new complication might arise between Marion and Bianca, and wished earnestly that they should come to an understandingimmediately. Nothing appeared to be easier, yet every day was a succession of little obstacles to their speaking together in that accidental privacy which they would naturally prefer. Still, she could not well put them in a carriage together. It would look too pointed. There seemed no other way, then, than to take him in the cab with her, and give thecalècheto Mr. Vane and his daughter. That any one should suppose that an attraction was growing up between her and this new friend had never occurred to her mind; yet both Mr. Vane and Bianca saw in every word and act of hers a new proof of it. Any one with eyes could see that Marion and Bianca liked each other particularly, the Signora believed. One had but to watch a few minutes, and it became evident that in company each was always so placed as to see and, if possible, to hear the other; and though one might not detect them looking directly, yet sometimes a glance, passing from one part of the room to another, swooped like a bird, and caught the one object it wished to seize within its ken. Yet Bianca provoked her somewhat. The girl was too serious and gentle, too discouragingly friendly. Why, thought the Signora, with that admirable good sense which we sometimes have when we think for others—why, when two persons are admirably fitted for each other, and everybody is willing, and neither of them can quite set about anything till the matter is decided; and when the gentleman, not to be too abrupt in his proposal, or expose himself to an unnecessary mortification, gives the lady that gentle, questioning glance which says so plainly, “May I speak?”—why, in the name of common sense, should she not drop herpretty head in token of assent, and allow at least a hint of a smile to encourage him? Echo answered, Why?
The upper air was silver with a late moonrise when they went out, while below the lamps burned goldenly through a velvety darkness. Their own street was quiet; but there was a crowd on Monte Cavallo. The glimpse they caught of the piazza of the Trevi fountain in passing showed it full and bright, and the Corso, when they reached it, was swarming with people and brilliant with lighted shops.
“What contrasts there are in Roman life, even in its most quiet times!” Marion said. “I wonder if any one ever was bored here? I doubt it. How well I remember one day of my last visit, three years ago now! It was a bright February afternoon, and I went out for a walk in the Campagna, and saw the ground covered with flowers, and myriads of birds flying about and singing. Coming back to town out of that verdant quiet, I went to the Corso. It was roaring with the height of the last day of Carnival. It looked as if all the world had gone mad with reckless mirth, and, by a common consent, were pressing to that one spot. It was with difficulty I got across the street, shaking a monkey from one arm, and escaping from the lasso of a huge devil on the other side. A few minutes brought me to the Gesù. There what a scene! The church all in darkness, except the tribune, where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the midst of a blaze of candles that shone on a crowd of faces all silent and turned toward the altar. Now and then the organ played softly; now and then a quiet figure stole in and found room to kneel where it seemed therewas no room for more. It was so still that every time the heavy curtain lifted there could be heard through the whole church the rattling of the tin boxes of the beggars outside. Half an hour later I reached the Corso again, just in time to see the horses rush by like meteors between two solid walls of men and women. And, lastly, just as the stars were coming out, burst the fairy spectacle of themoccoletti, when the narrow street became like a strip cut out of the live sky, thick with dancing stars, and palpitating with the soft pulses of the Northern Lights, blue, green, rosy, and white. I could have said it was not ten minutes before it was all over and I was walking home through a silent, star-lit night. The next morning at six I went to a church and received the Lenten ashes on my forehead. I do not wonder that Romans are lazy, for their imaginations are so kept on thequi vivethat muscular action must necessarily be distasteful. They cannot help regarding life as afesta.”
They reached their destination, a palace close toSt.Peter’s. Two servants stood bowing in theportone, and a little girl, the daughter of one, presented each of the ladies with a bunch of orange-blossoms. They passed into the court, where a fountain tossed its sparkling arch of water, sprinkling the greensward, which here replaced the usual pavement, and went up the grand stairs. The groined arches over their heads were glowing with color, trees, flowers, vines, birds, and butterflies—not an inch of wall was unpainted. Pots of flowering plants stood at the ends of the stairs and at the landings, and statues showed whitely through their fragrant screens. Here and there a lamp dropped from a gilt chain, and softly illuminedthis superb entrance. At the end of the first entry two servants held back the crimson velvet curtains of an open door, receiving the visitors into a chamber furnished in crimson, the walls of crimson and gold, the ceiling painted with sunset clouds, and a crescent of candles burning in front of crystal lustres. Reaching the next door, they looked down a vista composed of twelve or fourteen rooms, all softly lighted except the last, which was brilliant. The light struck along on door after door, all gilded, and set with mirrors at one side and paintings at the other, the curtains of silk or velvet drawn back on gilt spears or arrows. The floors were mostly uncovered, some of them of rare marbles or mosaics; a few were partially covered with thick Persian mats or carpets. One room was furnished in gold-colored satin, and profusely ornamented with the most delicate porcelain; a second was of a rich sea-green, sparkling all through with crystal ornaments, the chandelier of Venetian glass, the cornice made of large shells, and the ceiling painted in coral branches, tangled full of long grasses. Another chamber, of deep blue, was rich in old porcelain; another, hung with tapestry, bristled with old armor, and every sort of sword and knife arranged in figures, daisies of radiating daggers, and swords and shields made into mimic suns. Everywhere that gold could be it was lavished—on doors and windows and cornices; and one room had the whole panelling breast-high, and the large fireplace, heavily gilded.
In the last room they found the people they had come to see—a young couple as bright and pretty as a pair of canaries in their gilded cage.
There was no other company excepta white-haired oldcanonico, who had an apartment in the palace, and who was in some way related to the family. To this clergyman Bianca, at first a little shy among strangers, took immediately, and, seated by his side, became at once on the most friendly terms with him. His sweet and dignified manner, and the pleasure he showed in her evident confidence, were very pleasant to see. She told him all her story that could be told to any one, what she had seen and what she wished to see, and answered his questions with a childlike frankness; and, in return, he showed his interest in her by the number of his questions, and promised her all sorts of favors.
There was something peculiarly attractive and beautiful in this man, in whom were united the sacredness of a holy vocation, the venerableness of age and of a pure and unstained character, and the graciousness of an accomplished gentleman.
“I think you will all like to hear of something which I saw at the Vatican this morning,” he said when the conversation became more general. “I was presenting two French ladies. The audience was small, and among the persons present were the superior of the nuns of the Trinità dei Monti, and a younger nun of her community who had come with her as companion. This young nun had for several years been afflicted with a stiffening of the right hand and arm which drew them close to the breast, rendering them of course perfectly useless as well as painful. Before starting, the superior had told her to put a black glove on this right hand, so that it should not show so much, as her black habit and veil would render it less prominent than if it were bare; but when theyhad gone a part of the way the nun begged permission to take the glove off. The superior objected, saying that it might be unpleasant to the Holy Father to see her hand in that position, the fingers stiffened as they were. The nun said nothing for a while, but, when they had nearly reached the Vatican, begged again, still more earnestly, to be permitted to remove the glove. This time the superior consented. Well, they went in, and the audience was about over, when, in giving his benediction, the Pope observed that the young nun blessed herself with her left hand.
“‘Filuola mia, why do you not bless yourself with your right hand?’ he asked.
“‘Beato padre,’ she replied, ‘I cannot move my right hand; but if you would do me the grace—’ She said no more, but looked at him with imploring eyes.
“He was silent a moment, then he said, ‘Pray!’ and covered his face with his hands, as if praying or recollecting himself. Looking at her again then, he told her to bless herself with her right hand.
“‘But,santo padre, I cannot move my right hand,’ she said.
“He persisted: ‘Nevertheless, do as I bid you.’
“The superior took the nun’s right hand, and, lifting it for her, made a sort of cross with it.
“‘Pray again,’ said the Holy Father, and hid his face a second time, and seemed to pray.
“‘Now bless yourself with your right hand, and do it without help,’ he said.
“She immediately lifted her hand and made the sign of the cross on her forehead and breast as freely as if nothing had ever ailed her. She was cured.”
The prelate told his story withsimplicity and in a soft and slightly tremulous voice, affected by the sacred and tender scene he had so lately witnessed, and his audience exclaimed with delight. None of them, except the two American gentlemen and Isabel, were at all surprised. Too many such tales are known in Rome of PiusIX.to excite astonishment.
“I have seen the good nun this afternoon,” he continued, “and she is perfectly happy. She can play on the piano again, and do everything just as before.”
Finishing, he nodded toward the door, where a servant was standing, and presently rose to take leave. His evening visits never exceeded an hour, and, since he did not like to disturb the pleasure of social intercourse with the thought of going, a servant was always instructed to intimate to him when the hour was past.
“The only parting which I wish to foresee and prepare for is the final one,” he said smilingly.
“What a terrible sound that expression ‘final parting’ has!” Bianca exclaimed, seeming to be already pained at the thought of losing this new friend.
“That is because you interpret it wrongly,” he replied, with a kind glance at her. “You know it does not mean everlasting separation, but that there are to be no more partings, because after the next meeting we need never part again. It is simply the end of a long pain.”
He gave her his hand, which she kissed as naturally as an Italian would have done, though it was the first time she had rendered that homage to any one.
When he had gone, the company went up to theloggia, which was one of the attractions of the house.
“You see we have a private stairway,”the Contessa M—— said, opening a narrow door hidden in the panelling of the room they had been sitting in. “But it is so very narrow, enclosed in the thickness of the wall, that I will not ask you to go by it.”
“I do wish she would let us go this way, though,” Isabel whispered to the Signora. “How romantic it is! Who knows who may have slipped up or down that stair in the wall, who may have stood listening behind the panel while people were talking in thesala, and what may have been revealed or hidden there? It is like a chapter out of a tragical story—one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s, for example. Do you think we might not go up?”
Their hostess had, however, already led the way to a more commodious stair, and they could but follow. Besides, it is only in very romantic stories that ladies in beautiful silk and gauze dresses can go through secret and narrow stairways, cobwebbed attics, and dusty, haunted chambers, without detriment to their toilets, and the youngcontessawore that evening a lace flounce which she might not care to injure even for the sake of hospitality.
They passed through room after room, each worthy of a palace, mounted stair after stair, one servant preceding them with a lamp, and another following, walked over the roof of a part of the palace, climbed another stair, and came out on theloggia, or highest house-top.
The scene was enchanting; for the whole city was visible, and, by one of those kaleidoscopic changes constantly seen in a town built on hills, the city looked from here lo be situated in a round basin rising evenly on all sides to the tree-fringedhorizon. The grand front ofSt.Peter’s was scarcely a stone’s throw from them, apparently, and the two fountains of the moonlighted piazza stood wavering and white. It was not difficult to imagine them two angels standing there with garments softly waving in the night air.
Mr. Vane paused a moment at the Signora’s side. “I perceive more clearly every day why you may well be unwilling to leave Rome,” he said. “I wonder I could ever have expected it.”
“And yet it never appeared to me easier,” she replied very gently. “I have had all the happiness that can be had here, and ‘enough is as good as a feast,’ you know.”
She meant to please him, yet she fancied that he frowned slightly. He said no more, however, but stood looking about, and, after a moment, joined Isabel, with whom the young couple were having a lively conversation.
The Signora felt hurt. It seemed that Mr. Vane was losing confidence in her and becoming every day more distant. For a week or more she had felt that he was withdrawing his friendship from her, and changing in many ways. When had she heard a jest from him, or seen in him that quiet and deep contentment which he had shown at first? She had half a mind to ask him what the matter was. Perhaps she would some time, if opportunity favored. Meantime, it would be wiser not to distress herself. And just as she came to this conclusion an interpretation of his remark suggested itself to her that made the blood rush to her face painfully. Had he remembered with annoyance that half-proposal of his, and, either to remove any lingering pity she might feel for him or to savehis own pride, wished her to understand that it had been the impulse of the moment, and that he no longer entertained the wish to be more than a friend to her? In such a case her reply, with its hint of a possible change in her, had been most unfortunate.
There was one moment of cruel doubt and mortification, then she put the subject resolutely away. “I have been neither unkind nor bold nor dishonorable, and I have therefore nothing to be ashamed of,” she said to herself.
Meantime, Marion had stopped near Bianca, who stood looking at her father and the Signora. “How beautiful the Signora is!” he said. “Do you see that the golden tinge in her hair is visible even in the moonlight? And her eyes are the color of the Borghese violets she loves so much. I sometimes think that a rather tall and noble-looking woman like her should always beblonde, and that dark eyes belong to the slight and graceful ones.”
“We have always thought her beautiful,” she replied. “But we are so fond of her that we should admire her if no one else did. You must remember how we always praised her to you.”
He had been wondering how she would like having the Signora for a step-mother, and if she saw the likelihood of it. Perceiving a slight reserve in her speech, he did not pursue the subject, but stood looking at her a moment. Since he was silent, she glanced up in his face to see what it meant—if he were dissatisfied, perhaps, with her reply, or if he had taken any notice of it. He was certainly taking notice of her, and so close a notice that her eyes dropped again under it.
A quick glance showed him that he should have another minute uninterruptedwith her, and he spoke: “Dear Bianca, I came to Europe to seek you. When I found in Rome that you had gone into the country for a visit, I could not wait, but followed you. I went to your lodgings in Frascati, and learned that you had all gone up to Tusculum. I meant to watch, and meet you as you came down, and know by your first glance at me if I was as welcome as I could wish to be. I had with me the spy-glass that I always take into the country, and, as I swept the country with it, I espied a little party standing under the wall of the Cappucini villa on the Tusculan hill. One of their number had climbed the steps of the shrine there to decorate it, and, just as I recognized her, she turned and stepped down toward me. The glass was so clear and strong that she seemed stepping within my reach, and to me. I accepted it as a good omen, and returned to Rome content. I think you know me well enough to be sure that this is no trifling fancy, and that, if you can put your hand in mine, with the help of God, I will never allow you to regret it. Was my omen false?”
She listened with her lovely face lifted and lighted, and, when he ended, uttered a soft little exclamation, “O Marion!” and gave him her hand.
“How beautifulSt.Peter’s is by this light!” Mr. Vane said, glancing round at them from the other side of theloggia, whither he had gone.
His glance became a gaze as he saw them coming toward him; for Marion held openly the hand that Bianca had given him, and led her to her father. “Are you willing, sir?” he asked in a low voice.
The others were about joining them, and Mr. Vane could only press their two hands together.He glanced sharply at the Signora as she approached, and saw her face flash out in a swift smile when she caught sight of their position.
“I have been a fool,” he muttered.
“Everything is beautiful by this light,” Marion said, with a smile that gave a double meaning to his rather tardy answer.
When they started for home, they found that, by some happy mistake, the cab had been sent away, and there was no other in sight, so that the simplest way was for them all to return in thecalèche, crowding a little. The crowding was effected by Bianca sitting on the front seat between her father and lover. Leaning back there, she gave herself up to a delicious silence, only half-listening, except when Marion spoke, then drinking in every word. What a wonderful thing it was that here, by her side, sat her future husband, the man to whom she was to be united for ever and ever! Her life, as she thought, swung round into a harmony unknown to it for a long time, never known in its perfection till now. Looking forward, she had no fear. Nothing but death could separate them, and death must come to all. Let it come sooner or later, when God should appoint; she could bear it for him or for herself. She was full of courage and thankfulness, and ready now to live a full life, and begin to do some good in the world.
Mr. Vane spoke of the young woman he had seen that afternoon in the little church of Sant’Antonino. “She made an impression on me,” he said. “She set me thinking; or, rather, the sight of her condensed some floating impressions in my mind into thoughts. She was a figure that almost any well-dressed lady or gentlemanwould smile at involuntarily, if they did not pity her. But looking into her face, when she was serious and thought herself unobserved, I found it an uncommon one. I fancied there was something enthusiastic and aspiring in her, and that her ridiculous dress was an abortive expression of a fine impulse. She wanted to do or be something more and better than she had yet done or been; and having, perhaps, no sympathy from any one, and no education to assist her, knew not how to act, and thought more of getting out of the position she was in than of choosing properly what change she should make. Fancy how easily a girl of uneducated mind and tastes, and of an enthusiastic disposition, might make such an absurd attempt. She is, perhaps, disgusted with the sordidness and vulgarity of her life, and believes that the ideal life is that which appears beautiful to the eyes. She has heard, maybe has read, a little of great deeds and heroic adventures, and she associates them always with the well-dressed and the high-living. She thinks, very likely, that the noble have always noble thoughts, and that beautiful sentiments go with beautiful dresses. And so the poor thing cuts her dowdy petticoat into a train, and puts a cheap feather in her hat, and fancies that she is nearer the sublime. I don’t believe she really sees the trumpery things when she puts them on. She is looking at them through a thousand visions, and sees the velvet train of some heroine, and the jewelled cap and feather she wore. Poor thing! These visions of hers cannot, however, hide the sneering laugh from her, nor make her deaf to the scornful word; and I have an impression that to-night she took off her stage-robes with a bitterheart—unless, indeed, the Benediction consoled her.”
Isabel looked at her father with a steady and serious gaze while he was speaking, and, the moment he ended, said to him with an air of conviction: “Papa, you have the best heart in the world.”
He laughed a little, but seemed to be touched by this tribute. “I am glad you think so, my daughter,” he said. “Indeed, I am particularly glad just now, for a reason I will tell you, if you come here a moment.”
She leaned forward instantly on to his knees, and put her cheek close to his face.
“Because,” he whispered, “my other daughter thinks that there’s a certain heart worth more than mine.”
“Whose?” she demanded in an indignant whisper.
“Marion’s.”
“You don’t mean—” she exclaimed, and glanced round at her sister.
“You’re the only one of the family who didn’t know it, and I don’t want you slighted,” he replied. “It’s a settled affair.”
Isabel threw her arms around her sister’s neck and kissed her. “I never dreamed of such a thing,” she said; “but I am delighted all the same. You’re a million times welcome into the family, Marion. But I want you to understand that you are not better than papa.”
By this they had reached home, just as the soft bells of their basilica were striking midnight.
When they had said good-night to Marion and gone up-stairs, all turned with smiling faces to Bianca, and gathered about her, waiting one moment to see who should speak first, or if the congratulation was to be silent. By some slightmotion or look she imposed silence, at the same time that her face expressed the sweetest happiness and gratitude.
“That dearcanonicohas given me an invitation for us all to go next week and hear his Mass in the crypt ofSt.Peter’s,” she said. “Our number is just right; for only five can go at a time. We are to be there at eight o’clock.”
“Am I included?” Mr. Vane asked.
“O papa!” Bianca turned to him, and, putting her hand in his arm, leaned against his shoulder. No plan of hers could be perfect that did not include him; yet the cruel thought flashed through her mind, in spite of her love for him, that in the crypt ofSt.Peter, next to Calvary the most regally sacred spot on earth, a Protestant was singularly out of place, and that no one should enter there who did not bow toSt.Peter as the Prince of the Apostles and the holder of the awful keys.
The question produced a momentary painful embarrassment in the others, too, by reminding them strongly of that difference of faith which they sometimes were able to quite forget.
“My little girl must not have a cloud on her sky to-night,” the father said tenderly. “What is wanting to your happiness, Bianca?”
“That you should be a Catholic,” she replied, trembling; for, with all their affection and confidence, she had never presumed to speak to him on the subject.
“You have your wish,” he answered.
She looked at him doubtfully, but did not dare to say a word.
“I am in earnest, children,” he said, feeling a hand clinging to his other arm. “I was baptized this morning at the American College.”
Not a word was said, but on either side his daughters surrounded him with their arms, and pressed their faces to his breast.
When at length they remembered to look for the Signora, she had disappeared.
TO BE CONTINUED.