h a smile.

"Yes," replied Lady Nora.

"Then," said the cardinal, "you need not send it. I will come in my
barca. Electricity and the Church are not friendly. We have only just
become reconciled to steam."

Lady Nora laughed. "Good-by," she said, "until to-morrow," and again she
made her courtesy.

"Until to-morrow," said the cardinal; and he watched them down the
aisle.

"Tommaso," he said to the sacristan, "give me the turquoise cup."

Tommaso handed it to him, silent but wondering.

"Now lock the door," said the cardinal, "and give me the key."

Tommaso complied. The cardinal put the cup under his robe and started
down the aisle.

"Tommaso," he said, "you are now closed for the annual cleaning. You
understand, do you not?"

"Perfectly, your eminence," replied Tommaso, and then he added--"When a
stranger gives me two hundred and fifty lire it is time to lock my
door."

The cardinal went out of the church, the turquoise cup under his
cassock. He crossed the Piazza slowly, for he was both limping and
thinking. He came to the shop of Testolini, the jeweller, under the
North arcade, paused a moment, and entered. The clerks behind the
counters sprang to their feet and bowed low.

"Signor Testolini?" asked the cardinal; "is he within?"

"Yes, your eminence," said the head clerk. "He is in his bureau. I will
summon him."

"No," said the cardinal, "if he is alone I will go in," and he opened
the door at the back of the shop and closed it behind him. In ten
minutes he came out again. Signor Testolini followed, rubbing his hands
and bowing at each step.

"Perfectly, your eminence," he said. "I quite understand."

"It must be in my hands in ten days," said the cardinal.

"Ten days!" exclaimed Testolini; "impossible."

"What is that strange word?" said the cardinal; "it must be a vulgarism
of New Italy, that 'impossible.' I do not like it and I will thank you
not to use it again when speaking to me. In ten days, Signore."

"Yes, your eminence," said Testolini, "but it will be in the afternoon."

"In ten days," said the cardinal, very quietly.

"Yes, your eminence," said Testolini.

"He looks like Napoleon," whispered the head clerk to his neighbor.

The cardinal went limping down the shop. He had almost reached the door
when he stopped and spoke to a little man who stood behind the show-case
in which are the enamels.

"Ah, Signore!" he exclaimed, "how come on the wife and baby? I meant to
see them