ave ices with the
Papal colors, and we have a little box for Peter's pence, to be passed
with the coffee. I shall be much disappointed if you do not dine with
us."

"Wait!" called the cardinal to his barca. The oarsmen put about. "Tell
Pietro," he said, "to feed the pigeons as usual. Tell him to lay crumbs
on the balcony railing, and if the cock bird is too greedy, to drive him
away and give the hen an opportunity. Come for me at nine."

"Thank you," said Lady Nora; "your poor are now provided for."

"Alas, no," said the cardinal; "my pigeons are my aristocratic
acquaintance. They would leave me if I did not feed them. My real poor
have two legs, like the pigeons, but God gave them no feathers. They are
the misbegotten, the maladroit, the unlucky,--I stand by that word,--
the halt, the blind, those with consciences too tender to make their
way, reduced gentlefolk, those who have given their lives for the public
good and are now forgotten, all these are my poor, and they honor me by
their acquaintance. My pigeons fly to my balcony. My poor never come
near me. I am obliged, humbly, to go to them."

"Will money help?" exclaimed Lady Nora; "I have a balance at my
banker's."

"No, no, my lady," said the cardinal; "money can no more buy off poverty
than it can buy off the bubonic plague. Both are diseases. God sent them
and He alone can abate them. At His next coming there will be strange
sights. Some princes and some poor men will be astonished."

Just then, a woman, short, plump, red-cheeked and smiling, came toward
them. She was no longer young, but she did not know it.

"Your eminence," said Lady Nora, "I present my aunt, Miss O'Kelly."

Miss O'Kelly sank so low that her skirts made what children call "a
cheese" on the white deck.

"Your imminence," she said, slowly rising, "sure this is the proud day
for Nora, the Tara, and meself."

"And for me, also," said the cardinal. "From now until nine o'clock I
shall air my English speech, and I shall have two amiable and friendly
critics to correct my mistakes."

"Ah, your imminence," laughed Miss O'Kelly, "I don't speak English. I
speak County Clare."

"County Clare!" exclaimed the cardinal; "then you know Ennis? Fifty odd
years ago there was a house, just out of the town of Ennis, with iron
gates and a porter's lodge. The Blakes lived there."

"I was born in that house," said Miss O'Kelly. "It was draughty, but it
always held a warm welcome."

"I do not remem