Chapter XII: “to Be, or Not to Be.’ (1)

The Signora’s life in these days was disturbed by a doubt that was all the more troublesome because she was obliged to solve it unaided, and that without delay. What should she do with Mr. Vane?

Advice could be of no use, even if she had been willing to ask it. He satisfied perfectly all the conditions concerning which outward influence could have weight with a woman of character and refinement. It is always possible to tell a woman that she should not marry a man, the reasons given being good ones; but it is never possible to tell her that she should marry him, if she does not wish, however excellent he may be. The question with the Signora was, Should she marry at all? She certainly did not wish to marry. Was she willing? Here came up a host of arguments for and against, till she was as tormented and uncertain as Hamlet. If Mr. Vane would have consented to spend his life in Rome and remain her friend, without asking for more, she would have been satisfied, and have thought that her life had gained by him a sweetness she had never known, nor even thought of. For she had not been conscious of anything wanting, till his companionship had taught her that one niche in her house was vacant. She contemplated the possibility of marrying him only in order to keep him near her, not because she wished to change their relations. But the choice was forced upon her to lose him or to marry him.

It was a choice between two evils. Her life had been so exquisite, so nearer perfect than any one but herself could know, that to introduce new and important interests there was a dangerous experiment. How much more likely they would be to disturb than to complete the harmony! And yet, how pleasant was that masculine presence, like a shady tree in the midst of a sunny garden of flowers! How pleasant the sense of a superior physical strength and manly sympathy ever near! How pleasant the consciousness of constantly pleasing one worth pleasing by the thousand little feminine ways and words, and by the very being what she was, like a fragrant rose set in a chamber, silent and gracious. How many little pleasures he gave her which a man gives only to the woman he prefers to all others! It seemed to her she had never been well listened to before. Then to see her do a favor to any one, perform some graceful little act that might pass unregarded by others, even go about her ordinary duties, gave him a vivid pleasure. He appreciated the very rose in her hair, the ribbon at her throat, the bow on her slipper. Little things: but it is the little pleasures which make life sweet, as the little displeasures may do more than afflictions can to make it bitter.

She watched to see what danger there might be of certain small annoyances which she had seen fretting the course of many a married life, and he came out triumphantly from the ordeal. He did not hang for ever about the house till the women grew tired of him, any more than he went to the opposite extreme of staying away too much. He preserved a respectful ignorance of household affairs, in which he held that women should be autocrats, and at the same time listened with interest to any details that might be vouchsafed him, as to curious particulars of a country he had never visited, but which sent him important supplies. He was habitually polite to women, but never gallant, and he would have given a civil reply to a civil question proffered him even by an infamous person; and in the most private life, he dropped only ceremony, never respect. As far as personal habits went, he was a man who might have been a hero, even to his _valet-de-chambre_.

Point by point the Signora tried him, and still found no defect which could seem to indicate a disagreeable habit or an intolerable opinion. She could but laugh—a little nervously, indeed—at her own perplexity.

“You dear soul!” she thought, “why will you not do something hateful and set my mind at rest?”

He would not. He was not even guilty of the one fault that might naturally have been expected of him under the circumstances: he had no appearance of hanging upon her words and looks, as if for some indication of a change of intentions regarding him. She was free to act herself perfectly, without fear of misinterpretation. And yet, in spite of his forbearance, she felt that time was committing her, and that she must soon either decidedly prevent or decidedly receive a renewal of his offer.

The Signora might easily be accused by persons of little refinement of being one who did not know her own mind. On the contrary, she was rather exceptionally prompt and clear as to her requirements. But she was past the age when women usually marry in haste to repent afterward at leisure; and was, moreover, one of the comparatively few women who are fitted by their character to be friends to men without marrying them. The insidious sisterhood which ends in wifehood or in mischief she saw through and reprobated. “No man can have a sister,” she was wont to say, “other than the daughters of his mother. But he may have a friend. And no man has a right to expect sisterly service and familiarity from a woman not born his sister. It is a snare.” As a friend, she would never have charged herself with the care of Mr. Vane’s collars and cravats, advised him regarding the most becoming cut of his beard, nor performed the sentimental service of “bathing his fevered brow” when he had a headache, though she might have done all these things as a sister or a wife.

It was, altogether, a perplexing and even painful situation, and the Signora found all her pleasure disturbed by that ever-present fear of either throwing away a good which she might afterward regret, or committing herself to a state of life which she might regret still more. The weather added to her annoyance. Summer had reached its meridian heat rather prematurely, the sun poured his rays down in a torrent, and at noon the city was like a martyr at the stake. The nights began to lose their freshness and be scorched about the edges; the early stars, instead of shedding dews, were like the coals left in a half-swept oven; and the mornings languished on the horizon. It was a time for not only _dolce far niente_, but _dolce pensar niente_. Besides, people, being at this season so shut up together, need to be at ease with each other. There was very little to call them out, few friends left in town, and but few _festas_.

On one of these days came the _festa_ of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, the vigil of which is unique in Rome, being a real witch’s holiday, according to popular superstition. It is an ancient belief among the people that on this vigil the witches have liberty to go about where they will; and, since the world all goes to St. John Lateran, the witches go there too. In order to detect them it was the custom to procure a stick with a natural fork at the end. This fork was placed under the chin, the two prongs coming up over the jaws. Looking at a person over it in this wise, it could be known if he or she were a witch. Moreover, since it was believed that the witches would take advantage of the absence of the heads of the family to enter the houses and do harm to the children, the little ones being their favorite prey, a new broom was bought, and set, broom-end upward, outside the door. Before entering, the witch was obliged to count every spill of the broom. As a further precaution, some salt was sprinkled on the threshold, and, in case that should not prevent their entering, these words were repeated while sprinkling it: “Come tomorrow to borrow salt of me.” The witch who entered was constrained to come and knock at the door the next day, and ask the loan of a little salt. For the further safe-keeping of the children during the night, the mothers hang some object of devotion about their necks or bind it around their bodies, and, when they are about going to sleep, whisper the _Credo_ in their ear, repeating every word twice, thus: “I believe, I believe, in God, in God,” etc.

“What do they think a witch would do to the children, if she should enter?” we asked our Roman informant.

“Take off the object of devotion and touch them, or do something to them so that they would die,” was the reply. “A child that has been touched by a witch pines away to a skeleton, and dies, without any one being able to find out what ails it. I believe, and I do not believe,” she said with a shrug. “Who knows? The Scriptures tell of evil spirits having power. Who knows how it may be? My sister, however, lived and died persuaded that her only child was touched by a witch, though it was not on St John’s eve. She had been getting her baby to sleep one day, when a neighbor came and called her to the door for some reason. She went out, leaving the door open and the baby in its cradle. When she returned, there was an old woman bending over the cradle and talking to the child—an ugly, dirty old creature, that she had never seen before. My sister took fright at once, and called out to her to go away. 'I saw the door open and heard the baby crying, and I came in to soothe it,’ the old woman said. My sister told her she had no right to come in, and chased her away. On the threshold the woman turned and shook her finger. 'You will repent this,’ she said. In fact, the babe, which had been healthy, and was just dropping peacefully asleep, began to moan and cry, and nothing could pacify it. My sister examined and found that the little devotion it wore had been taken away. From that day the child pined. She got nurses for it, she tried everything possible, but nothing helped it. Finally, she carried it to the church of St. Theodore, in the Roman Forum, where all the mothers carry their sick babies. The priest blessed it, but told her that it was too late: the child would die. And it did die. She tried then one proof more. She took all its clothes that it died in, and that it had on when the witch touched it, put them in a grate, and kindled a fire under them. They burned as if there had been gunpowder among them. That was a sure proof, they said. But for me,” continued the story-teller, with another shrug, “I believe, and I don’t believe. _Chi lo sa?_”

It is curious to find how this witch-idea is embodied in every nation, and always with very nearly the same features: old, ugly, child-hating, powerful for petty malice, but a slave to the most trivial spells, repelling, disgusting—a fair representation of the utter despicableness and feebleness of evil.

At the first soft fall of twilight the family of _Casa Ottant’Otto_ stepped into a carriage and drove out to the Lateran by the roundabout way of the Roman Forum. From the Colosseum up to the church, all about the church and palace, in a part of the piazza, and the ends of the streets leading to it, every nook and door-way and every rod of ground had its table or booth, some lighted by a soft olive-oil lamp, others clear and bright with petroleum, others flaring with the red light of a torch. Piles of cakes of every shape and size, wine in bottles, flasks, and jars, cones of the delicious Roman lemons, that are so juicy and fragrant, trinkets, scarfs, knick-knacks of various sorts, covered the tables and counters. Here and there a more ambitious salesman, probably a Jew, had erected a little shop. Everywhere were pinks and lavender. Each table and counter held sprigs and bunches, and men, women, and children went about with their arms full of it. A little crowd of these noisy venders surrounded the carriage the moment it stopped, and the ladies supplied themselves with lavender for their drawers, and bought large bunches of red pinks, and each of them a St. John’s bouquet. This bouquet consists of a little white flower surrounded by pinks, and outside four sprigs of lavender. The lavender for drawers is ingeniously done up. A bunch is gathered with long stems to the sweet gray seeds and blue flowers, and a string is tied close under their little chins. The stems are then turned back to make a cage for the cluster, and tied again at the other end; and yet again turned back and tied a third time, so that only glimpses can be had of the caged bloom; and all is lavender.

“We should have come to first Vespers, if we wished to think of the austere St. John,” the Signora said. “The scene is simply picturesque and beautiful at this hour, and will be bacchanalian later. The world doesn’t begin to come till twelve o’clock, and at that time it will be almost impossible to move for the crowd, which does not disappear entirely till daylight.”

They drove off toward Santa Croce, and, turning there, stayed awhile under the soft dusk of the trees, looking back on the twinkling lights and crowding figures, and talking a little. The fiery half-ring of the three days’ moon touched the tip of a pine-tree in the west and kindled it; the stars overhead seemed to be melting out of their orbits in a glowing rain; the air was full of a sweet fragrance and delicately fresh. Sounds of laughter and mingled voices reached them now and then. But all—the wafts of air, the sounds, the radiating lights, the motions—were so soft that the whole might be a great picture which they half imagined to be alive.

The Signora leaned back in her seat and gave herself up to the scene, mingling with it the ever-present thought: What should she do with this man who sat opposite her? His face was turned to look back, so that she saw the profile, a fine one. She felt very feminine and weak just then—not at all like taking care of herself all her life long, being both mistress and master of her house, and her own adviser and support. The spirit of strength, of an enthusiastic liberty of effort and labor, faded and fainted within her. They could not live in such a scene. She wanted to be taken care of. All the insidious arguments of the sluggard began to whisper themselves to her. Of what use was this constant toil and strain, which was but a daily rolling up hill of a burden that every night rolled down again? Of what use the study, the thought, the self-denial? All had seemed pleasant; but, come to think of it, where had been the repose? Had she ever looked at a flower without, after the first glance, studying how she should present its beauties in words to other eyes? Had she ever drunk a sunset with all its color down into her own soul, and left its glory there, but speedily her pen must dip the light of it up to shine on a page for others to see? Whither had fled the long, tranquil sleep, the calm folding of the hands, the deep and steady thought for thought’s sake? There was no one in the world, it seemed to her, who thought so much of others as she did. She analyzed her pains, her religious emotions, her very temptations, for them, and studied her own breathing that she should be able to tell them how they breathed. And what was the return? Bread, and not too much of that. She had studied her art as the painter, the sculptor, and the musician study, making a science of it, and not one in a hundred looked on it as any more than an idle and facile play. She had felt her way, by a natural gift and an acquired power, into the depths of souls, and had led them out alive into the light; yet how many an ignorant critic and shallow moralist had set up his wooden or card-paper model for her to follow!

How odd she had not known before how tiresome it was! She had at times felt tired, but to know that all was tiresome, and vanity of vanities—that had but just broken on her. This soft and joyous scene, usurping the hours of sleep, making the work of the day to follow an impossible thing to be done, and finding its playground under the stars—this was what had opened her eyes. A careless laugh had done it. She looked at Mr. Vane and thought: “I hope he won’t ask me to-night, for if he should I shall certainly promise to marry him; and I do not like cutting Gordian knots with sudden resolutions. I would rather untie this a little more leisurely,” she considered, still looking at him. “If I want honors and favors, I could win more by giving good dinners than by writing good books. A dinner is more powerful than an epic; for anybody can take in a dinner, but everybody cannot take in an epic. If I want friends and the reputation of being amiable, the good-natured complacency of prosperous ease will go a great deal further than the somewhat over-earnestness of a serious life.”

She snatched her eyes and her thoughts quickly away from the subjects that occupied both, and began to talk; for Mr. Vane turned, as if aware of being observed, and looked at her.

“I must have a little longer to think,” she said to herself, with a fluttering heart. “It will never do to decide to-night.”

“If we are going to keep up our character of a sober and orderly household, we must soon be on our way home,” she said. “The witches are certainly abroad—I almost see them—and we have no spell to prevent their getting into our carriage.”

Mr. Vane had been holding his breath for the last few moments. He knew, without looking, what eyes were on him, and almost knew what thoughts were passing in the Signora’s mind. He felt that his fate was in the balance. The prize seemed to be within his grasp; for to hesitate, even, seemed to give consent. At the first word he felt that hope grow dim. Consent would have lingered in that enchanted scene, would have given itself up to some ideal dream, forgetting the flight of time. She was evidently resisting, if not refusing.

“Let us take one turn round by the wall and Santa Croce,” he said. “Then we will go. I don’t think I shall ever have another drive just like this, and I would like to prolong it a little.”

“Prolong it as much as you please!” the Signora exclaimed, with quick compunction. “I only made a suggestion, which came from habit. If you like to stay, I shall be pleased.”

His voice, a little quickened and a little deepened, had seemed to have a touch of reproach in it, as though he should say: “Think, at least, a little of me!” But his answer to her was quite friendly: “You were right. We had better not stay long. One turn will be enough.”

They went on, the Signora fighting now two forces instead of one—for pity for him was added to pity for herself. What a beautiful and noble patience his life had shown, and with what a sweet dignity he had covered that painful thought that he had never been first to anybody!

As they passed round near the wall, approaching Santa Croce, the trees hid all the lights from them. The two daughters, one at either hand of the father, leaned on his arm and sighed with delight; Marion, seated beside the Signora, leaned forward to touch Bianca’s hand, unable in that shadow to see her. The darkness touched their faces like a down, so thick and moist was it, and so full of fragrance.

They came out before Santa Croce, and, turning, went back as they had come. More than one of the company would have liked to propose walking back along the avenue, but did not venture to do so. A few minutes brought them to the piazza of St. John’s again, and into the midst of a crowd of eager buyers and sellers. Here and there out of some dim corner a face shone red in the flare of a half-shaded torch, small figures ran and danced across the lights, black as _silhouettes_; the whole coloring was Rembrandt.

Then home through the quiet streets, where occasionally they met a couple or a party, all going toward St. John’s.

“It seems to me a kind of Santa Claus time, except that it is hot weather,” Bianca said when they reached home. “I feel as though somebody ought to come down the chimney to-night.”

“By the way,” the Signora exclaimed, “I have never introduced you to my Santa Claus. How ungrateful I am! I am going to tell you my little story; for I am almost sure that you four good people are as ignorant of the genealogy of the Santa Claus of Christmas fame as I was when I came to Rome. If you are wiser, then you can at least hear how I was enlightened. When I had been in Rome but a little while, I made the acquaintance of an elderly prelate, who was so kind as to do for me many of those little services which a stranger needs, and was of the greatest use to me in many ways. I seldom, almost never, asked anything of him, but it was constantly happening that he offered some kindness at the very moment it was needed. I never went to visit a city new to me but he introduced me to some influential friend there, and I never heard of a new old sight to see but he could tell me how to gain the best view of it. His kindness was so pleasant and opportune that after a while, without the least intention of being disrespectful however, I came to call him in my own mind Santa Claus. His Christian name is Nicholas. One day, while talking with me, he asked if I had any of the manna of St. Nicholas of Bari. I replied that I did not even know what it was. He looked at me in astonishment, and explained that it was a limpid substance like water which had oozed from the bones of St. Nicholas the Great, without ceasing, for more than fifteen hundred years, the saint having been born somewhere late in the third century; that every morning the sacristan gathers it with a sponge and preserves it in bottles; and that the people of Bari and all that region have so great a faith in the saint and his miraculous 'manna’ that they use it for every malady. He ended by promising to send to his brother, an archbishop somewhere in the south of Italy, to procure a bottle of this precious liquor for me. In a few days he brought it. Here it is!” The Signora brought from a little shrine that closed with a door in the wall, and displayed, a bottle filled with what appeared to be the brightest and most limpid water. “Monsignor showed me a similar bottle that he has had forty years,” she continued, “and it was as pure and bright as this—perfectly unchanged. He had opened it, now and then, to take out a few drops. Some years ago he gave a bottle also to the Holy Father, who keeps it beside his bed on a little shelf. Here is the picture of my saint.”

It was a quaint old print, copied, doubtless, from a picture in the church of St. Nicholas, in Bari, and represented the sainted archbishop standing on the shore, with the sea and ships behind him. At his right knelt a youth on the sands; at his left three infants were rising out of a tub, commemorative of two of his miracles.

“After having given me this relic of his great patron, Monsignor, full of zeal for his honor and of pity for my ignorance, began to tell me something of his life, and how knowing of an impoverished noble family, driven to desperation by need, and almost deciding to sell the daughters to a life of vice, since they had no money to marry them, this young saint went slily by night, and dropped a bag of gold in at the window sufficient for a _dot_ for the eldest; and, after a while, in the same manner, provided for the others, the family rejoicing over their escape and repenting of their evil resolution. When Monsignor had got so far with his story, I broke out, 'Why, it is Santa Claus!’ And, sure enough, it was. The great saint was no longer a stranger to me. I had known, without knowing, him all my life, from the time when I had first read the wonderful illustrated story-books of Christmas, and seen my mother hang my stocking in the chimney-corner before taking me off to bed on Christmas eve.”

The Signora was very glad to have this little story to tell by way of making an inclined plane to the saying of good-night. Undercover of it she escaped to her own room without being entrapped into a private interview, which she almost suspected Mr. Vane of plotting.

Then they had a little expedition for the morning to see the making of tapestry in the great hospice of St. Michael.

“If the weather and the time of day were not so hot,” the Signora said, “we would go a little further on, to the scene of a miracle of Santa Francesca Romana; but I don’t believe we shall be able to do so. A little way from the hospital is the Porta Portese, and outside that is the vineyard where that beloved saint and her companions worked one January day from dawn till noon, without having anything to eat or drink. They had forgotten to bring provisions; and Francesca, when she saw her companions suffering from thirst, accused herself of having neglected to provide for them. She was then, you know, a mother-superior, and these were her oblates. Well, the youngest of them, almost crying with thirst, begged to be allowed to go to a fountain out on the public road. The saint told her to be patient, and, withdrawing herself, began to pray: 'Lord Jesus, help us in our need; for I have been thoughtless in neglecting to provide food for my sisters.’ 'She’d much better take us home at once,' said the poor little nun to herself. And then Francesca, rising from her knees, pointed to a tree around which twined a vine loaded with large clusters of grapes—just as many clusters as there were poor nuns to eat them. They had passed this very tree again and again, and seen the vine dead and withered that very day. That same Santa Francesca is one of the dearest saints in the calender,” the Signora said. “Though, to be sure,” she added, “when we think over their lives, each one seems to be the dearest.”

“My idea of saintliness is always associated with asceticism,” said Isabel.

“If only the asceticism be not sour, as it never is with the saints,” responded the Signora with a sigh. “About the most uncomfortable company one can have is that of a person who, we cannot doubt, is virtuous in many ways, but who looks upon one with an expression full of suspicion and condemnation, without seeming aware that in so doing he has committed a sin against charity which, according to St. Paul, renders his other virtues nothing. To my mind, one of the first requisites of a Christian character is to mind one’s own business.”

“Oh! I don’t mean asceticism that goes only far enough to stir up the bile,” Isabel said, “but that which clears the heart, so that the light of charity shines quite through it and brightens every object it looks upon.”

They were already on their way to the asylum of St. Michael—that immense establishment, which contains a little world within itself, where beauty and charity dwell together; where the young find protection and instruction, and the old a refuge, under the same roof; where music, sculpture, painting, and kindred arts have made their home. Here the poor, instead of being swept away like dead leaves from a garden, to decay in obscure disgrace, slip, consoled and unashamed, into the grave, like fallen leaves that die in peace between the embracing roots of the green tree they once helped to adorn. The long, arched corridors were fresh and cool, the brilliant day entering only in a tender light, or, here and there, in some splash of gold that burned only the spot it fell upon. Fountains murmured in the courts, and all the business of the place moved with a subdued and leisurely action which made work seem a pleasure. It was not toil, but occupation—that wise and healthy degree of work which makes work possible for many years, instead of crowding the force of a whole life into a few feverish days. There was not a face which showed anxious and nervous hurry. All were calm and cheerful.

Our friends did not attempt to see anything more than the tapestry-making and mending, the first in the men’s department, the last done entirely by women and girls. The two immense halls devoted to these works, with the ante-chambers, were completely hung with old tapestries, making a softly and richly-colored picture-gallery of the whole place. In the manufacturing hall upright frames held the great squares of the warp, with the design drawn or stamped carefully on the closely-stretched threads. Behind these sat the weaver, working in the figures with long spools of colored wools, pressing down closely each stitch with a little instrument he held in the left hand. A score or more of these bobbins hung at the back of the tapestry, each to be caught up and woven in in its turn. Across the lower part of the carpet already a yard was splendidly woven of solid and brilliant color. In another part of the hall hung a large picture for a future weaving—a balcony with a vine and figures—and on a table under it were arranged the myriad selected shades and colors that composed it. Here all in the work was brightly colored; but when they went to the other part of the building, where the women were occupied in restoring, it was like passing from dazzling midsummer to a late October day. The very light and atmosphere of the place seemed different. Stretched on large frames laid out like country quilting-frames were dim old tapestries with figures of gods and goddesses, of mythical heroes and heroines, or of historical persons and events, the fabrics all more or less ragged, but inestimably precious. Girls were grouped around these, mending, directed by an artist. Hanging on the walls were other tapestries that had been repaired, and so perfectly that it was impossible to distinguish what part had been restored without looking at the wrong side of the work. Lying in bunches and snarls on the work, or hanging in long rows of varied hues on the wall, were skeins of wool, of every shade and color, dim, dark, soft, or pallid, like colors seen by night, by the stars, or by the moon, or colors guessed at by eyes half-blind or by eyes that are dying. There was a suggestion of tragedy in those old new colors, as in sad or blighted faces of children. And how much more of interest and tragedy in the old tapestries for which they had lost all their brightness! Nothing else is so interwoven with romantic possibilities as old tapestry. Luxury, which may have been regal, clings to it, but it is the luxury of olden times, when the beggar touched the prince. Mystery and terror are its companions; for who knows who or what may sometimes have been hidden behind that splendid curtain? Lifting its fold on some day of an age gone by, what white, cold face might have been found there between it and the wall, what sliding figure of a hiding spy, what twinkle of a dagger-point in the dusky corner! And then what pageants does it not suggest of the times when life was a picture!

“It really takes one out of the nineteenth century,” Mr. Vane said.

“The weaving of this tapestry,” the Signora told her friends, “was first taught here by a monk—I have forgotten in the time of what pope. This monk was a backslider and ran away from his convent; after being absent ten years he repented, and came back to throw himself at the feet of the Holy Father. 'Give me any penance, Holy Father,’ he said, 'and I will do it gladly.’ The pope, rejoiced to receive this prodigal, asked him where and how he had passed the ten years of his absence, and was told that they had been spent in the tapestry-works of Coblentz, where he had learned all the art of tapestry-making. 'Go, then, to St. Michael’s,’ said the pope, 'and teach them to make tapestry. That shall be your penance.’ And so it was done; and that is the origin of the work in Rome. The story was told me by a prelate who was formerly director of St. Michael’s.”

It was too near noon when the inspection was over for them to go to Santa Francesca’s vineyard. They could only hide themselves in the large covered carriage, and drive slowly home through the almost silent streets. They sighed with contentment when they reached the doorway, where, through the half-open valves, the floor showed freshly sprinkled and all the place cool and softly lighted.

Isabel glanced back into the street. A sick beggar, who was at his post on a doorstep of the opposite convent so constantly that one might well believe he had no other home, leaned back and seemed to sleep, his pallid face whiter than the white stone it lay against. A poor man slept in the shadow of the garden wall above, lying flat on his face on the pavement. Further up, a woman, with two little children clinging to her, sat on the ground in the shadow, and ate her dinner of a piece of bread.

“It seems to me,” the girl said thoughtfully, as she followed the others up-stairs, “that there should be a perpetual thanksgiving society which every one who has a home or a roof to cover them should join.”

The Signora touched Isabel’s arm affectionately and smiled in her pretty, sober face. She found this girl changing, or, rather, developing into something nobler and more serious than she had expected.

“There is a Perpetual Thanksgiving Society in Rome, my dear,” she said. “I am so glad you have had the thought without having heard of it. It is one of the most beautiful societies in the world. It has its meetings the third Thursday of every month, at the Caravita, a little church that used to belong to the Jesuits. There is an instruction, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and afterward the _Magnificat_ is sung. The special objects of the association are to thank God constantly for the good we receive through the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, the Sacred Heart, and by the intercession of the Virgin Mary; and the special festas of the society are Epiphany, Pentecost, Corpus Domini, Sacred Heart, Annunciation, Visitation, Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin, St. John the Evangelist, St. Gertrude, St. Felix de Cantalice, and Our Lady of Grace. The loveliest thing of all is the practice enjoined on the members of making constantly the aspiration, 'Thanks be to God.’ I wish this society were in every town in the world. We beg, we are always begging, and the showers are always coming down. How beautiful is the idea of a society which asks nothing, but sends up a perpetual _Deo gratias_, as the earth sends up mists in return for the rain!”

“I shall join that society at once,” Isabel said with decision.

The Signora laughed. “You had better take off your bonnet and have some dinner now,” she said.

“Your society pleases me very much,” Mr. Vane remarked. “But the most perfect act of thanksgiving I know is that in the _Gloria_: 'We give thee thanks for thy great glory.’”

There was a little moonlight reception and tea-party that evening out on the _loggia_. Clive Bailey came to take leave before going away for a few weeks into the country. Mr. Coleman also had been unexpectedly called to England on business, and was so afflicted about going that the Signora was vexed.

“I cannot bear to have a man about who cannot get along without me,” she said privately to Isabel, “especially when I can get along perfectly well without him. When a man falls into that dependent and moony state, he loses all his character and becomes despicable. It disgusts me the more, besides, because it is usually the strong-willed, driving women who have such masculine appendages. I do hope I’m not getting into that way. For pity’s sake, tell me if I show signs of it. I have seen ladies—I recollect at this moment a lady, clever, pretty, prompt, and circumscribed in character, who makes all her familiar gentlemen acquaintances either hate her or serve her like dogs. I’ve seen her take a man whom I thought a very respectable sort of person, with a mind of his own, and, by dint of smiling and scolding, rewarding him promptly when he was good, and punishing him promptly when he didn’t obey, end by making a perfect ninny of him. He couldn’t brush his boots or tie his cravat except just as she directed him; if she was vexed with a person, he didn’t dare be civil to them; if she was reconciled to the same, he immediately beamed upon them with the most unconscious and imbecile servility. Yet the two were not lovers, and never dreamed of being so, I presume, and both of them would have been astonished, or would have pretended to be astonished and indignant, if one had hinted that his firmness had been nothing but starch, and she had washed that out of him. I wouldn’t be such a woman for the world. I wouldn’t be a driving, positive woman for anything. I wouldn’t be a woman persistent in small things for my eyes. Mr. Coleman makes me feel as if I were growing so.”

“Nonsense!” Isabel laughed. “It isn’t in you to be so. Mr. Coleman needs change of scene, that is all. He has been circling round you so long that he has got dizzy.”

“Well, I’m glad he’s going off at a tangent,” the Signora replied, only half-reassured. “He certainly would provoke me dreadfully, if he were to go on in this way under my eyes. Don’t let him come near me this evening, and don’t give him a chance to say good-by to me. Take him quite off my hands—that’s a dear girl.”

Isabel promised, and kept her promise so well as to make of the poor bewildered gentleman as nearly an enemy as he was capable of being to any one. He had another source of disquiet, too, and that was the exceeding politeness and cordiality with which the Signora treated the very cruel relative who had come to take him away, and whom he had brought up with him that evening in the vain hope that she would help him to escape. On the contrary, she merely sealed the compact.

“You are quite right, sir,” she said. “These affairs of property can so much better be attended to in person than by proxy.”

“Besides,” replied the cousin, “a man who has property in the country has really some duties there. He should spend a little of his money for the benefit of the state, his neighbors, and the church.”

He privately despised this city of Rome, which he now visited for the first time. Its dinginess, its dirt, and its religion disgusted him.

“Church!” echoed the Signora with calm inquiry. “I was not aware that Mr. Coleman belonged to any church.”

“He has certainly deteriorated very much since he left England,” was the rather sharp response, “but our family are all Catholic.”

“Indeed!” she exclaimed, in real surprise. “I have always understood from Mr. Coleman that his family belonged to the English Episcopal Church.”

“We claim that to be the Catholic Church, madam,” the gentleman responded proudly. “Or, rather, we claim the title for that older branch of it which now restores the ceremonies and beliefs it laid aside for a while.”

“Oh! the family are Ritualists,” said the Signora.

The gentleman drew himself up. “The term does not describe us,” he said. “We have a ritual, of course; but that is not all. I consider the title trivial and disrespectful.”

“I did not intend the least disrespect in the world,” the Signora made haste to say. “I merely repeat the name I have heard. I have always considered Ritualism very—refined—and”—she seemed to be laboriously seeking some words of suitable praise—“and—delicate. It has many beauties—and—in short, is, it seems to me, an—eminently—lady-like religion.”

Mr. Vane took pity on the Englishman, who looked confounded, as if not knowing whether to believe his ears, which had heard, or his eyes, which beheld, the perfectly simple and courteous expression of his entertainer. Mr. Vane, without seeming to have heard a word, introduced the subject of property, on which men can always talk unflaggingly for any length of time.

The Signora gave her attention to an enthusiastic Catholic lady, who was making a pilgrimage of her visit to Italy. This lady was one of those charming Christians who sometimes puzzle us a little. Her whole life was given up to what may be called religious pursuits. She attended functions unceasingly, and on every day was to be found in the church dedicated to the saint whose day it was. She visited relics, shrines, and scenes of religious events, and she did all with an enthusiasm which expressed itself in the most gushing manner. In short, she luxuriated in religion. She knew all about the lives of the saints, and spoke of them with the ease and familiarity of an intimate friend. One could perceive by her conversation that she believed them to be particularly watchful over her, and rather more ready to do her favors than to attend to the wishes of most others. She exhorted people a little now and then, gently, with the air of one who knows. The whole manner of the woman, in things religious, was that of a favorite daughter in her own father’s house, to which the world at large was welcomed with a smiling charity and hospitality. But that others were there also in their own father’s house, and equally beloved by him, did not seem to occur to her. The clergy and all religious she admitted and gave precedence to, seeking and admiring them almost as she did the saints. But, after them, she seemed to walk alone; or rather, she entered with them, and others waited a permission. People in the laity, like herself, were, in some mysterious manner, assumed to be unlike her. The silence of deep religious feeling in others she treated as indifference, and sometimes strove, with seeming good intention, to stir up the souls of those already more deeply moved than herself. She abounded in little devotions, little pictures, little lamps and candles, a multiplicity of pious knick-knacks, enough to bewilder a person of simpler tastes. She wore every scapular, and all the medals she could get, and her girdle was laden with rosaries. By most people she was called a very pious woman; by many she was believed to be a saintly woman. She certainly was a fairly good woman and a nice lady of religious tastes. But, looked at by clear eyes, she was a little puzzling, like some others of her kind. One missed there a central virtue, the sweet humility that makes little of its own goodness, and the charity which rejoices to see others beloved and preferred. With such assumption, one would have expected these virtues. Looking so, moreover, one suspected the existence of a deep and pernicious pride. How did she receive a word of exhortation from an equal? Not as she expected her own exhortations to be received, certainly, but with an expression of astonishment, mortification, and even displeasure. When did she sacrifice herself for others, and say nothing about it? when did she do an act of charity, and conceal that she had done it? when did she hesitate to obtain for herself an advantage because it was to be at the cost of another, unless that other were a person in orders or in religion?

The Signora looked at this lady, and liked her, and admired her in many ways, but she could not help wishing that there were a little less self-complacency in spiritual matters, and a little more willingness to sacrifice her own wishes and aims at times. The thought would intrude itself into her mind that it was less a real, working Christian that she beheld than a religious sybarite. She could not say of her, as a famous author has said of some characters rather similar, that “their celestial intimacies did not seem to have improved their earthly manners, and their high motives were not needed to account for their conduct”; but she was frequently pained to perceive a striking discrepancy between the profession and the practice.

“I have been to-day for the first time to see Santa Maria degli Angeli,” the lady said, in the gay and pleasant way habitual to her. “There seems to be no one left there but a few old, old men. They were in choir when I went to the church, but I should never have suspected it. I asked the sacristan if there would be a Mass soon. 'After _coro_,’ he said. I asked when _coro_ would be, and he replied, looking at me with some surprise, that it was going on then. I had heard a sound like a little company of bumble-bees among the clover, but that it had anything in common with the great, ringing chorus of St. Peter’s or the other great churches I never dreamed. By and by choir and Mass were over, and they all came out. Such a group of dear old Rip Van Winkles! They were all tall, had long hair and long beards of white, or streaked black and white; they drooped in walking, and their black and white robes, not very fresh, gave me a strange impression of antiquity and decay. It must have been the color and oldness of their clothes that made me think of Rip Van Winkle. I was quite ashamed of the thought. More than one head among them would have answered for a St. Jerome. That dear St. Jerome!” she added, drooping into pensiveness, as if, in uttering the name, she had been rapt away.

She recovered herself after an instant, and came back smilingly to the present. “You have no idea what a devotion I have for St. Jerome,” she said.

“I can quite understand it,” the Signora replied. “His character is one to inspire a great admiration and reverence. Here in Rome one becomes more familiar, in a certain way, with the saints. One is so much nearer their earthly lives, their relics and their _festas_ abound so, and one comes so constantly upon places which they have inhabited or visited, that one has a sense of shame and humiliation at coming no nearer their virtues.”

The lady smiled. “I had not thought of that,” she said. “I approach the saints with all confidence and simplicity.”

“That is a very pleasant feeling,” the Signora said calmly, “and, to an extent, may be a virtue. But do you not think that we should have also a feeling of awe in view of that splendid faith of theirs, and of that sublime constancy and ardent charity, which led them to face torments and death without flinching, while our lives seem but a series of compromises, and dispensations from everything that does not agree with our delicate and pampered natures? It seems to me that, if we remember the difference between our lives and theirs, we shall almost expect that when we approach their shrines they will perform one miracle more, and speak an audible reproof to us.”

The lady looked disconcerted and a little displeased. But, some one interrupting them, the subject was dropped.

After they were gone Mr. Vane displayed a letter he had received that day from the prior of Monte Cassino, inviting him and his family to visit their monastery. This clergyman had been on very friendly terms with Mr. Vane in America, where he had spent a good many years, and now, hearing of his conversion, was anxious to renew a friendship which would have a charm it had not before possessed, and to welcome to a brotherhood of faith one who had always been kin to him by a community of generous nature.

“He writes that we can stay a few days on the mountain and see everything there at our leisure,” Mr. Vane said. “There is a house outside the gate where you ladies can stop, and I can have a bed inside. What do you say to it?”

The invitation was accepted by acclamation. Monte Cassino was one of the places to see in Italy—a gem of nature, religion, and art. Before sleeping that night their plans were made. They would put off the visit a little, hoping for cooler days, as the journey was one of five or six hours. Meantime they had a little trip to Genzano in view, to see the _festa_ of the Santissimo Salvatore. And close upon them was Santa Maria delle Neve.

To Be Continued.

“MAY-FLOWERS.”

Dear Mother, on our country’s breast—
Our country that is thine—
Our poets place as scutcheon flower
Small argent stars that shine
With pallid light when scarcely wake
The leaf-buds from their sleep,
When, nursing summer’s waiting bloom,
The storm-stained leaves lie deep.

Fair, little stars that faintly gleam
Like planets sunset-dimmed,
The dearer for their glory scant
On barren heavens limned.
Pale May-flowers, whose stainless cheek
Seems born of winter snow—
One rosy drop of living blood
Flushing the veins below.

Whose faint-breathed perfume seems to rise
Like prayer of anchorite,
The heart that pours its incense forth
Low hidden from our sight;
Whose sweetness seems like nimbus pale
Crowning some saintly head,
The light of self-forgotten life
In holy odor shed.

Kind Mother, see, these little flowers
Our land is given to wear,
When still the forest arches stand
Of leafy tracery bare;
When still the heavens’ softened blue
Grows dim with wind-swept snow,
And lonely-seeming Phœbe chants
Disconsolate and low.

This precious bloom bears thy dear name—
Though given unaware—
And in its gentle life we trace
The gleam of thine more fair.
In France’s thoughtful land they give
Bright flowers to be thine eyes,
Within their blue forget-me-nots
Thy glance’s calmness lies.

Upon our matin blossom rests
No depth of peaceful blue,
Yet breaks the rosy dawn of love
Its cheek’s pure whiteness through.
Amid the darkened leaves it lies
In blest humility,
A lowly handmaid of the Lord,
Unstained of earth, like thee—

A hidden life e’er pouring forth
An offering pure of prayer;
The sweet unconsciousness of grace
Soft’ning the rude, bleak air.
The blood-stained heart the sword hath pierced
The spotless breast within,
The quiet shining on a world
Bitter and drear with sin.

A crown of stars that perfects all
With heaven-won aureole—
Let France’s blossom claim thine eyes,
Claim ours thy spotless soul;
Whose gracious blessing ever rest
On this broad land of ours,
That not in vain her poets’ shield
Be quartered with May-flowers.

THE LEPERS OF TRACADIE.[28]

Footnote 28:

This article is condensed from one which appeared in the _Revue
Canadienne_, by M. de Bellefeuille.

“Ah! little think the gay, licentious crowd,
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround—
Ah! little think they, while they dance along,
How many pine! how many drink the cup
Of baleful grief! how many shake
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind!”

—THOMSON’S _Seasons_.