Crying for the Light: or, Fifty Years Ago. Volume 3 of 3
TextCHAPTER XXV.
A REVELATION
No sooner was Rose in London than she made her way to the hospital indicated in the anonymous note which had been the cause of her and her husband’s unwelcome return to town.
She had never been inside a hospital before. There was something bewildering in its vastness and its antiquity. Close by ran swift the current of City life, ever turbid and boisterous. In there all was calm and still. The one thought that brightened and hallowed the spot was the life that had been saved, especially among the poor, to whom our great hospitals are indeed a blessing and a boon.
‘I want to see a patient in the women’s ward,’ said Rose to the porter, as she alighted at the entrance.
The porter expressed his fear that she had come in vain, unless she had a better clue to identification.
In his despair he sent the lady in the direction of the women’s ward, and there her difficulties began anew. There were many poor suffering ones in the women’s wards. How could they tell where was the one she sought? As she was waiting, one of the staff came downstairs.
‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed; ‘Miss Howard, how came you here?’
He knew the actress, and at once rushed to rescue her from the dilemma.
Rose had little to go by. The note had been sent from Sloville. It was clear that someone connected with Sloville was lying ill – perhaps dying – there. Under the guidance of one of the nurses she went softly from one bed to another. One nurse after another was appealed to. At length one was found who had the charge of a case in one of the wards. Her patient had at times spoken of the town in question; but she was ill, very ill, and the nurse was afraid any excitement might be fatal. When the medical man in charge of the case was consulted he shook his head despairingly. The thread of life was nearly worn out. A woman from Sloville had been there to see her, and the little talk between the two had considerably increased the patient’s danger. Originally the woman in question had been run over by a cab outside one of the theatres. Her constitution was entirely gone, and the injuries inflicted on the system had been serious. After three months’ nursing she had been sufficiently healed to leave the hospital, and had led a more or less wandering life. Then she had gone down hop-picking in Kent; had caught cold; that cold had settled on her lungs. There was no earthly hope for her, and there she lay, wrestling not for dear life, but with grim death. But there was no immediate danger. Good nursing and tender care might lengthen her days for a short season.
‘If Miss Howard would return to-morrow, the doctor would try and get her into a proper state for a little talk.’
‘I would rather see her now,’ said the lady.
‘Impossible, madam; quite impossible, madam,’ said the medico, and Rose had reluctantly to retire.
‘Surely I have enough on hand,’ said she to herself, ‘if all the note hints is true. People said when I left the stage I should find life tame and dull. I have not found it so at present. I believe no life is tame and dull if one is determined to make the most of it. After she had left the stage, Mrs. Siddons, from the want of excitement, was never happy. I am not a Mrs. Siddons, happily,’ said the retired actress to herself.
The morning came, and Rose was again at the hospital. The medical man was there to meet her, and they went together to the patient’s bedside. In that emaciated face, purified by disease from its former grossness, few would have recognised ‘our Sally.’
We are a merciful people. Let our tramps live as they may, we take good care of them in our hospitals.
‘Father never gives beggars anything,’ said a little boy to one of the fraternity in a small country town; ‘but he always prays for them.’
We may show a stern face to the tramp; but once inside a hospital we give him something more than prayers – proper food, trained nursing, the best science that can be procured for love or money. Comforts, nay, luxuries, he could never procure for himself. Indeed, in all desirable respects, he is as well off as a millionaire.
But to return to our Sally, lying there calmly in her clean bed, in a long and lofty ward, apparently indifferent to all external things, simply satisfied with life such as it was.
‘A lady has come to see you,’ said the doctor, in his pleasant tones, ‘A lady from Sloville.’
‘Take her away. I am that bad I can’t speak to her.’
‘Are you quite sure you don’t want to see her? She says you sent her a letter to come.’
‘No, it warn’t me. It was that Sloville woman as was here last week. I told her not to bother, and now she’s gone and done it.’
A fit of coughing came, and conversation ceased.
Then the nurse administered a little stimulus, and that revived her.
‘Leave us alone,’ said the poor woman.
The others withdrew, and Rose stepped forward.
‘You’ve been good to my boy,’ said the patient slowly, as if it were hard to talk.
‘What do you mean? The boy I took from Sloville?’
‘Yes.’
‘But someone has written to me to say that he is the heir of Sir Watkin Strahan.’
‘Yes, he is. I stole him.’
‘Stole him! Why, how could you do such a thing?’ asked the actress excitedly.
‘For revenge!’ exclaimed the poor woman, with all the energy she could collect, and then fell back exhausted. For a time both were silent, and Rose watched with pity the face, stained by intemperance and sensuality and all evil living, wondering what could be the connection between that poor pauper in the hospital and the proud deceased Baronet.
‘Read this paper,’ said the poor woman.
‘Oct. 187-. Saw my pore boy on a brogham at the theatre. I knowed him at once. His father is Sir Watkin Strahan, and he was on the box of Miss Howard’s brogham. I lost him as I was going to speak to him. The peeler told me to be off.’
‘Then, it was you that left him at Sloville, where I took him up?’
‘Yes,’ said the poor woman feebly, adding: ‘Come nearer.’
Rose complied with the request.
‘I was an underservant in Sir Watkin’s house. He was a wicked man. He took a fancy to me. I war young and good-looking, and a fool.’
The old, old story, thought Rose to herself, for the poor woman gave her plenty of time to think, so slowly and feebly did the words come out of her mouth.
‘One day the missus came and caught me in his room. I was turned out into the street, without a character and without a friend. I vowed I’d be even with him, and I run off with his boy.’
‘How could you manage that?’
‘Oh, that was easy enough. The nursemaid was allus a talking to the sodgers in the park. And an Italian Countess helped me. She had an idea that if she could get rid of the child and the wife she would marry the master.’
‘But was no effort made to get the child back?’
‘Oh yes! But I managed to get a dead baby, the very moral of his’n. An Italian lady staying in the house helped me. I dressed it in his clothes. The master thought it his own, and had it buried in the family vault.’
‘That was very wrong of you.’
‘Perhaps it was. But had not the master and missus both wronged me? Arter that I got married, but me and my husband were always quarrelling about the boy, and that made me take to drink, and then, when I lost my husband, I drank worse and worse.’
‘And then you went on the tramp, and left the boy at Sloville, and I took him.’
‘Yes.’
‘He is a good boy.’
‘He allus was.’
‘But why did you not see him righted?’
‘I did one day. I had a letter sent to Sir Watkin, and he sent me word it was all a lie, that his boy was dead. Then his lady died, and he went abroad, and – ’
‘And you never saw him again?’
‘Only twice. When I saw him outside your theater and tried to speak to him. But he pushed me into the street, and then I met with my accident. He’s a hard un and a bad un.’
‘And when again?’
‘Not very long ago; when they had the election at Sloville. I was there and he too, but he would not look at me. Oh, he was harder than ever!’
‘Speak not of him now – he’s dead.’
‘Dead! Oh, dear!’ said the woman. ‘Do you mean to say he’s really dead?’
‘Yes,’ said the actress, ‘he died only a few days since.’
‘And I am dying – oh, dear! What a wicked woman I’ve been! What mischief I’ve done!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why, I meant to restore the boy.’
‘It is too late – the boy has no father now. Is this truth you tell me? It is a strange story.’
‘The truth, so help me God.’
Then she sank back utterly overcome. At length she said:
‘I’ve not long to live, have I?’
‘I fear not.’
‘You’ll see me buried decent?’
‘Yes, I will.’
‘And you’ll be kind to the boy and see that he has his rights?’
‘If I can.’
‘That makes me feel better.’
‘I am glad of that.’
‘You are kind.’
‘How can I be otherwise? You’re but a woman, and I am no more.’
‘They’re all kind here,’ said the woman, sobbing.
‘It is because they love God.’
‘Ah, so the parson says. Sir Watkin used to tell me the parson told lies.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘Yes – I don’t now.’
‘God is our Father, and He loves us all.’
‘What, me?’
‘Yes, you.’
‘What, me, with all my wickedness?’
‘Yes, you and I, with all our guilt and sin. His heart pants with tenderness for all. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he should turn to Him and live. He sent Jesus Christ, His Son, to save us.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘Yes, with all my heart. I should be wretched indeed if I did not. Daily my prayer is, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.’”
‘Ah, I like to hear you talk. I’ve not heerd such talk since I was a gal, and then I did not believe it. But it does me good now.’
‘Yes, but I must not talk any longer, or you will be excited and get worse. Try and have a little sleep, and I will go home and pray for you.’
‘Thanks, miss,’ said the woman gratefully; ‘you’ll come and see me to-morrow?’
‘Yes, I will,’ said Rose, as she turned to go home.
But that to-morrow never came. At midnight the summons came, and all that was left of ‘our Sally’ was a silent form of clay.
Some of us go out of the world one way and some another.
Happy they who can exclaim, with Cicero, ‘O preclarum diem,’ or with Paul, ‘I know in whom I have believed;’ or with Job, ‘Though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’
Unhappy those who with dim eye, as it restlessly sweeps the horizon of the future, can see no beacon to a haven of light, no pole-star pointing to a land of eternal rest —
‘No God, no heaven, no earth in the void world —
The wide, gray, lawless, deep, unpeopled world.’
Rose rushed home as rapidly as the cab she hired could carry her. Wentworth was in.
‘What am I to do?’ she said, as she told him the whole story.
‘Better send for the boy,’ he said.
‘Oh no, not yet. He is comfortable where he is, learning to be a sailor. He’s fond of the sea, and it will be a pity to take him from it.’
The fact is, the young waif, as Rose thought him, was placed, at her expense, on board one of the training-ships lying off Greenhithe. They are noble institutions, these training-ships – saving lads who, if left to themselves, might become tempted by circumstances or bad companions into crime, and at the same time supplying us with what we English emphatically require at the present day – English sailors on whom captains can rely on board our merchant ships and men-of-war. There was no difficulty in getting the actress’s protégé there, and there he was rapidly training into a good sailor and a fine fellow, well-built, obedient to his superiors, handy, and hardy, and sturdy, morally and physically, as all sailors should be.
The next thing was to talk to a lawyer. In this wicked world lawyers are necessary evils. Sometimes, however, they do a great deal of good. The lawyer recommended Wentworth to call on the family lawyer of the deceased Baronet. He came back looking unhappy and uncomfortable, as people often do when they have interviews with lawyers who are supposed to be on the other side. He found him in comfortable quarters on a first floor in Bedford Row, Holborn, looking the very image of respectability – bald, and in black, with an appearance partly suggestive of the fine old clergyman of the port-wine school, with a touch of the thorough man of the world; a lawyer, in short, who would give an air of plausibility and rectitude to any cause in which he was embarked.
To him Wentworth apologized for making an intrusion.
‘No apology at all was needed, my dear sir. Happy to make your acquaintance. I have not only read your books – very clever, too, Mr. Wentworth – but I heard of you more than once through Sir Watkin Strahan.’
‘Perhaps in no complimentary terms?’
‘Well, you know the late Baronet was a man of strong passions, and, when annoyed, I must admit that his language was what we might call a little unparliamentary.’
‘It is about his business I have called. You are aware there is an heir?’
‘Oh yes; Colonel Strahan, the brother.’
‘I don’t mean him. A son.’
‘A son! Impossible. The deceased baronet had only one son, and the fine fellow – ’
‘Is now alive.’
‘Nonsense, my dear sir. He was buried in the family vault, after the doctor and the family were satisfied of his identity, and I was present at the funeral. There was a coroner’s inquest held in order to leave no room for doubt.’
‘I think not,’ said Wentworth, as he proceeded to unfold the details of his case, to which the lawyer listened at first with a severely judicial air, and then with an incredulous smile.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ he asked, when Wentworth had finished his statement.
‘Pretty much so,’ replied Wentworth.
‘Then,’ replied the lawyer, with a triumphant air, ‘we have little to fear. Sergeant B.’ – naming a popular advocate of the day – ‘would laugh the case out of court in a quarter of an hour. You have a quarrel with the deceased. Your good lady has – to put it not too strongly – been insulted and shamefully ill-treated by him. Who would believe that, in promoting this suit – should you be so ill-advised as to do that – you came into court with clean hands? The idea is perfectly preposterous.’
The worst of it was that Wentworth, as he withdrew, was compelled to own that there was not a little truth in what the lawyer had said.
It was not law but equity that was required in his particular case. In England law and equity, alas! have often different meanings.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE ITALIAN COUNTESS
‘How lovely!’ said a lady to a gentleman on the deck by her side, as they were drinking in all the beauty of the scene as one of the fine ships of the Orient Company dropped her anchor in the Bay of Naples. ‘And look what a swarm of boats have come out to greet us!’
They were a swarm indeed, some of them with divers to exhibit their prowess, some with fruit and flowers, some with the lava ornaments in the manufacture of which the Neapolitans exhibit such exquisite skill, and others with musicians – vocal and instrumental – keeping up for the time quite a serenade. These Neapolitans gain but little, it is to be feared, on such occasions, but the Neapolitans are a frugal people, and make a little go a long way.
The lady was Rose, the gentleman by her side was her husband.
‘Yes; and see, one of the boats has a young girl who has come on deck with flowers, which she is fastening in the gentlemen’s coats in hope of a small fee. How pretty she looks!’
The girl approached Rose, to whom she offered a flower.
‘Why, it speaks the language of hope,’ said Rose. ‘I take it as a good omen that here we shall find the Italian lady of whom we have come in search.’
‘Let us hope that it may be so. We have no time to lose if we mean to go on shore. The health officer has done his duty, and given leave for the captain to land his passengers. Let us hasten to get on board the steam launch. I see already they have got our luggage. Fortunately for me there is not much of it.’
And in a few minutes they were at the custom-house. The only difficulty was a small box of cigars, on which Wentworth had to pay a most exorbitant duty.
At the end of the quay they found a crowd of coachmen waiting for hire, shouting and gesticulating in the wildest manner. Rose was quite frightened at their appearance, and with the noise they made. However, they found one who did not charge more than double the ordinary fare to drive them to the hotel. As they drove along they encountered, of course, some of the awful drain smells for which the city has long been famous.
‘I don’t wonder, now,’ said Rose, as they pulled up before a grand hotel, ‘at the saying, “See Naples and die.” How can people live where such smells are met with everywhere? But if that Italian Countess is alive we may find her. Perhaps she can help us to establish our boy’s claim.’
That same morning an Italian Countess came home from her daily drive in a great state of trepidation. She had seen an English face that she remembered but too well – it was that of Miss Howard, the celebrated actress. She had ordered the coachman to keep the lady in sight; but that was impossible, the crowd was too great, and she returned home not a little agitated. Was it fancy or fact? was a question she could not determine.
What could she do? Well, she drove off to the English Consul next day. Perhaps he could tell her. Alas, he was in utter ignorance of the matter.
There were the hotels; she would drive to them and make inquiries. There were only a few of them, as a rule, patronized by the English. It would be easy to make inquiries. She did so, but she could hear of no Miss Howard at any of them. All day long she was driving up and down the principal streets, but in vain. There is not much to see in Naples itself, it is the country round that is the attraction, and Rose and her husband were out all day long studying the remains of Pompeii, climbing up Mount Vesuvius, sailing to Sorrento or Capri, exploring the ruins of Baiæ, and the grave of Virgil. There was much to see, and they had no intention to let the grass grow under their feet. Daily they returned at a late hour to their hotel, charmed but wearied; and thus they had but little time to spend in the streets, looking at the shops, or studying the manners and customs of the people.
The Countess pondered over the matter deeply. She lived a retired life herself; she had few friends; her establishment was on a very moderate scale. There were those who said she was not a Countess, that her title was merely an assumed one. This was unfair, as most of the ladies one meets in Naples are Countesses, and the presumption therefore was in favour of her ladyship’s claims. Countess or no Countess, she was in a very troubled state. She had seen a face that reminded her of old times in London – of her intrigue with Sir Watkin Strahan – of her worming herself into the confidence of his lady – of her participation in the abduction of the heir – in fact, of her revenge; and she sighed as she thought how little good she had gained by it. Her ladyship’s maid was alarmed. What had come to the Countess it was beyond her power to imagine.
‘Have you anything on your mind?’ said her old Italian priest as he sat in the first-floor of one of the villas that looked over Naples on to its lovely bay and the sea beyond, whilst Vesuvius on the left was indicating, in its usual way, that it was suffering a good deal in its inside. The old priest lunched with her ladyship every day.
‘Anything on my mind?’ said the lady. ‘Oh, dear father, no. Why talk to me in this way this bright afternoon, when all nature seems so bright and gay? Ah, it is a beautiful world when one is young – the terraces, the gardens, the flowers, the blue sea, the old castle beneath, the streets with the jewellers’ shops, the fine churches with their sacred services and sacred paintings. How I love them all! I could not live away from La Belle Naples. Oh, that I could stay here for ever!’
‘That were a foolish wish, daughter,’ said the holy man. ‘Naples is very fine and its bay is beautiful, but you have something better to look at. See, the crucifix! Behold Who bleeds and suffers there – Who founded the Catholic Church of which I am a humble member, and in whose name I speak. At one time, if I may believe what I hear, you were not quite so fond of Naples as you seem to be now. I have heard that you went to the land of the heretics – that Island of England which has so long denied the faith, but which I am glad to find is abandoning its heresy, repenting of its sin, and returning to the Holy See. When we see the sister of an English Prime Minister find salvation in the bosom of the Holy Church, when our sacred officials are run after in all the highest circles, when they astonish all London by their works of charity and labours of love, by their eloquence and learning and saintly lives; when these Islanders, insolent and haughty as they are to one another, crowd as they do to Rome, and prostrate themselves at Rome’s feet as they do, we know that the end is near – that the time of the triumph of the one Catholic and Universal Church, to whom St. Peter committed the care of the keys, is at hand. Pray that that blessed time may soon arrive. I have been to St. Paul’s – I know Westminster Abbey – it would rejoice my heart to hear that once more there was performed in them the Holy Service of the Mass.’
‘Holy father, that is my daily prayer.’
‘I am glad to hear you say so. But tell me, when you were among the heretics were you always a daughter of the Church?’
‘Always, holy father. I fulfilled my mission – you know what that was.’
‘I have heard something of it.’
‘I should think so,’ replied the lady with a smile. ‘I had money, and I drew around me its worshippers. I was of an old Italian family, and stood well in the upper London circles. I had beauty – smile not, holy father, though you see me old and yellow and wrinkled – and beauty, as you know, never spreads its net in vain. I believe, also, I had wit, and wit goes far in that land of fogs and foxhunters, of prudish women and milksops, of cant and humbug.’
‘Ah,’ said the monk, with a smile of approbation, ‘you seem not to have liked those English – those heretics – those lunatic sightseers who, as they never can be happy at home, come to us to forget their sorrows, and who fancy that by doing so they are amusing themselves.’
‘Truly no, holy father. How could I? They do not even worship the Virgin Mary!’
The holy father shook his head and sighed.
‘I think, daughter, you wished to have a chat with me. There was something on your mind.’
‘Holy father, you are right; and as I cannot come to church to make confession I have sent for you.’
‘Yes; in the name of the Holy Father, and armed with his authority, I may hear confession and grant, to the truly penitent, absolution. The Apostle Peter had that power, he received it from the great Head of the Church; and our Popes – His true followers – have ever used that power for the cure of poor sinners, for the good of the Church, for the glory of His Blessed Name. We humble ministers hear private confessions. It is a sacred privilege, to be guarded jealously; but I know its value. I have seen how the weak and erring mortal who has confessed to his priest has had a heavy weight taken off his heart, has lost the cares and sorrows which were darkening and shortening his days, has gained joy and gladness as he thus realizes the Divine favour and feels certain that after the pangs of death are over we shall rescue him from the pains of purgatory, and he shall pass away to the mansions of the new Jerusalem, shall walk its golden streets, shall drink of its surpassing joys, shall join in its celestial harmonies, and take his stand with the great company of the elect gathered by the labours of the Holy Catholic Church out of every age and country under heaven. This is what we gain by means of the Mass, and yet the heretics scoff at the service and audaciously assert – in this respect only following the arch-heretic, Luther – that the Mass is simply a means for getting money out of the pockets of the people.’
‘What awful blasphemy!’ said the lady with a shudder, at the same time making the sign of the cross. ‘Glad indeed was I to leave that horrid country. It is full of Free Catholics.’
‘Free Catholics!’ said the priest, in a tone of alarm. ‘What can they be?’
‘Alas, holy father! they are everywhere – in Paris, in Brussels, in London. They are only Catholics in form, but not in heart. In fact, they are no better than Protestants.’
‘Not exactly – if they keep up the forms of the Holy Church they are better than Protestants,’ said the priest, ‘who in denying the form deny the faith, as the holy Apostle says, and are worse than infidels. But, my daughter, time is wearing away.’
‘Ah, truly, holy father, it is luncheon-time. Already I hear by the gong that it is served.’
The father knew the rules of the house, and timed his visit accordingly. Soup, fowl, fish, with cut of roast lamb, a choice bottle of Italian wine – it won’t bear transplanting, nor a sea voyage – a few grapes and green figs, with a cigarette and a demitasse of coffee, were not to be despised. He found alike his piety and his benevolence all the better for such a feast. The Countess kept a cook and a butler, and they were neither of them novices by any means. There has been good eating and drinking on the shores of the Bay of Naples, at any rate since the time of the Romans. Naples owes its fame, and probably its existence, to the superlative loveliness of its situation. As old Sam Rogers sang:
‘Not a grove,
Citron or pine or cedar: not a grot
Seaward, and mantled with the gadding vine,
But breathes enchantment;’
and thus it was that the bon vivants of the old world loved the favoured spot – that Baiæ was the Brighton of the Romans. Between it and Puteoli rolled the Lucrine Lake, over which skimmed the small yachts of fashionable visitors, while around were the oyster-beds for the luxurious tables of Rome. It was there Sergius Orata of blessed memory established the fine oyster-beds which have ever since been a model for all succeeding ages, and a name grateful in the ears of the epicure.
The lady and her guest had coffee served up in an adjoining apartment. The lady lit up her cigarette, the gentleman did the same. It is wonderful how tobacco quickens the conversational powers. High-born dames, as well as Irish fish women, in this respect own the influence of the seductive weed.
‘Ah, father,’ said the Countess, ‘you have known me long. I have confidence in you.’
‘Yes; I have known madame long – friend of the good cause, a supporter of the true Church – liberal with her money and her time, strict in the observance of holy days. What would you, my daughter?’
‘Ah, father,’ said the lady with a sigh; ‘it was not always so – I have lived.’
‘Yes; many of us who now pose as saints can say as much,’ said the holy father. ‘What a blessed thing it is to be able to find out what is true life, what are true joys – the ecstasy of being lost in the Divine Being, of being waited on by angels, hasting to guide one the way to Paradise, of appealing to the sweet Virgin Mary, of having her as an intercessor night and day for our sins in the court of Heaven! Compared with these things, what are the pleasures of sense and sin – which are soon vanished, and always leave a sting behind?’
‘Oh yes, father; I can feel and realize all this, but I am not happy. I am in great anxiety – I have a great weight on my mind. My medical man tells me to avoid excitement, that I suffer from disease of the heart, that any day I may have an attack which may be attended with fatal consequences.’
‘Oh, dear madame, calm yourself. You look well – madame speaks and walks well. There is assuredly little serious to contemplate. These doctors, who are they? – ignorant quacks who, for their own selfish ends, make us believe that we are on the way to death when in reality we are in the enjoyment of health and strength. Remember how, in a cholera year, Death met the Devil as he was on his way to Vienna. “I shall slay twenty thousand people,” said Death. In a day or two they met again. “Ah!” said the Devil, “only ten thousand died of cholera.” “Ah,” said Death, “that is true.” “How, then,” asked the Devil, “did you make up your number?” “Easy enough,” was the reply; “ten thousand were killed by the cholera and the other ten died of fright!” Ah, these doctors, they do a lot of mischief! They are also, I fear, men of science – that is, men of no religion. It is dangerous for one’s soul to have them about us. It is the priest, your ladyship, who is the true friend of all in sickness or adversity, or doubt or sorrow.’
‘Oh, father, I believe you. And now to business.’
‘With all my heart.’
‘There is no one who is likely to overhear us?’
‘None. The house is silent as the grave,’ of which it really reminded one with its funereal embellishments, its ghastly pictures of saints and martyrs – the work of old masters they said, horrible to look on – and crucifixes of every kind. In some parts of Italy this show is supposed to indicate the possession of true piety, and that, like charity, covers a multitude of sins.
‘Well, father, let me state a case in which I am interested.’
‘I am all attention.’
‘In the fair city of Florence there was a girl, fair in person, a fine figure, a sunny face, a gift of song. She was the child of pious parents in the neighbouring mountains. The father was an officer in the Pope’s army. When all Europe dashed its armies, not in vain, against the holy rock of St. Peter’s, the father died as a brave man should. The mother lived on on her small estate on the mountains. The girl loved the city, and the museums, and the gardens, and the picture galleries. She would not go back to the solitude of her country home; in fact, she ran away, and one morning she met an English milor. He was rich, he was handsome, he was well-born; he told her he loved her to distraction – she would always be happy with him. In a foolish hour the silly girl went on board milor’s yacht, that was lying in the bay – just as the yachts of milors lie there to-day.’
‘Ah! that was bad,’ said the priest.