compassionate he looked, she desired to persevere in her effort to
sympathise with the humble and the wretched. "No, no, Dario, we must
stay. These gentlemen wish to see everything--is it not so?"

"Oh, the Rome of to-day is here," exclaimed Pierre; "this tells one more
about it than all the promenades among the ruins and the monuments."

"You exaggerate, my dear Abbe," declared Narcisse. "Still, I will admit
that it is very interesting. Some of the old women are particularly
expressive."

At this moment Benedetta, seeing a superbly beautiful girl in front of
her, could not restrain a cry of enraptured admiration: "_O che
bellezza!_"

And then Dario, having recognised the girl, exclaimed with the same
delight: "Why, it's La Pierina; she'll show us the way."

The girl had been following the party for a moment already without daring
to approach. Her eyes, glittering with the joy of a loving slave, had at
first darted towards the Prince, and then had hastily scrutinised the
Contessina--not, however, with any show of jealous anger, but with an
expression of affectionate submission and resigned happiness at seeing
that she also was very beautiful. And the girl fully answered to the
Prince's description of her--tall, sturdy, with the bust of a goddess, a
real antique, a Juno of twenty, her chin somewhat prominent, her mouth
and nose perfect in contour, her eyes large and full like a heifer's, and
her whole face quite dazzling--gilded, so to say, by a sunflash--beneath
her casque of heavy jet-black hair.

"So you will show us the way?" said Benedetta, familiar and smiling,
already consoled for all the surrounding ugliness by the thought that
there should be such beautiful creatures in the world.

"Oh yes, signora, yes, at once!" And thereupon Pierina ran off before
them, her feet in shoes which at any rate had no holes, whilst the old
brown woollen dress which she wore appeared to have been recently washed
and mended. One seemed to divine in her a certain coquettish care, a
desire for cleanliness, which none of the others displayed; unless,
indeed, it were simply that her great beauty lent radiance to her humble
garments and made her appear a goddess.

"_Che bellezza! the bellezza!_" the Contessina repeated without wearying.
"That girl, Dario _mio_, is a real feast for the eyes!"

"I knew she would please you," he quietly replied, flattered at having
discovered such a beauty, and no longer talking of departure, since