ss! The
black serge gown, the coarse shoes, the square cap, ugly as they are,
can't disfigure him; and though they cut off his beautiful hair, that
curled half-way down his back, they couldn't spoil him. He has the great
dark blue eyes of his mother, and the long lashes, almost girlish to
look at.'

'He's mild and gentle, then?' said Charles pensively.

'Indeed and I won't tell you a lie,' said Luke, half mournfully, 'but
that 's just what I believe he isn't. The sub-rector says there's
nothing he couldn't learn, either in the sciences or the humanities.
He can write some of the ancient and three of the modern tongues. His
disputations got him the medal; but somehow----'

'Well--go on. Somehow----'

'He's wild--wild,' said the friar, and as if he was glad to have found
the exact word he wanted; 'he 'd rather go out on the Campagna there
and ride one of the driver's ponies all day, than he 'd walk in full
procession with all the cardinals. He 'd like to be fighting the
shepherds' dogs, wicked as they are, or goading their mad cattle till
they turn on him. Many a day they 've caught him at that sport; and, if
I 'm not mistaken, he's in punishment now, though Mrs. Mary doesn't know
it, for putting a ram inside the railings of a fountain, so that the
neighbours durstn't go near to draw water. 'Tis diversions like these
has made him as ragged and tattered as he is.'

'Bad stuff for the cloister,' said Charles, with a faint smile.

'Who knows? Sure Cardinal Guidotti was at every mischief when a boy; and
there's Gardoni, the secretary of the Quirinal, wasn't he the terror of
the city with his pranks?'

'Can I see this boy--I mean, could he be brought here without his
knowing or suspecting to whom he was presented?'

'Sure, if Kelly was to----'

'Ay, ay, I know as well as you do.' broke in the Prince, 'George Kelly
has craft and cunning enough for more than that; but supposing, my
worthy Fra, that I did not care to intrust Kelly with this office:
supposing that, for reasons known to myself, I wished this matter a
secret, can you hit upon the means of bringing the lad here, that I
might see and speak with him?'

'It should be after dark, your Royal Highness, or he would know the
palace again, and then find out who lived in it.'

'Well, be it so.'

'Then there's the rules of the college; without a special leave a
student cannot leave the house, and even then he must have a professor
with him.'

'A cardinal's ord