That, We Had Been Told, Was Something Which No One Coming To Rome Should Miss; And We Were So Anxious

Not to miss it that on our way to the Pincian Hill we stopped at the foot of the church-

Steps, and reassured ourselves of the hour through the kindness of an English-speaking nurse-maid at the bottom and of a gentle nun at the top, who both told us the hour would be exactly five.

When we came back at that time and bought our way into the church by rightful payment to the two blind beggars who guarded its doors, we found it packed with people who bad been more literally punctual. They were of all nations, but a large part were Anglo-Americans, and a young girl of this race rose and gave her seat, with a sweet insistence that would not be denied, to that one of us who deserved it most. He who was left leaning against the soft side of a pillar hesitated whether to make some young priests spreading over undue space on one of the benches push up, and he enjoyed a rich moment of self-satisfaction in his forbearance. He was there, to be sure, an alien and a heretic, out of mere curiosity, and they were there probably so rapt in their devout attention that they did not notice their errant step-brother, and so did not think to offer him the hospitality of their mother church's house. But he would not make any such allowance; he condemned them with the unsparing severity of the strap-hanger in a trolley-car, who blushes with shame for the serried rows of men sitting behind their newspapers. When he was at his wit's end to find excuse for them a priest on another bench made room, and he sank down glad to forgive and forget; but now he would not have yielded his place to any other Protesant in Christendom.

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