ng dissertation as to what
motives they had had, some to insist that Christ's person was of great
beauty, others to affirm that it was of terrible ugliness.

Caesar would have liked to go on listening to what this gentleman said,
but Don Justo joined him. The Trappist was in front of two mummies,
explaining something, and he wanted Caesar to translate what he was
saying.

Caesar did this bit of interpreting for him. The candles were beginning
to burn out and it was necessary to leave.

The cicerone took them rapidly along a gallery at whose end there was a
stairway, and they issued into the sunlight. The monk extinguished the
taper on his stick, and began crying:

"Now, gentlemen, do you want any scapulars, medals, chocolate?"

Caesar looked over his companions in the expedition. The Canon
was indifferent. The old maritime Breton showed signs of profound
indignation, and his daughter, the little French mystic, had tears in
her eyes.

"That poor little French girl, who arrived here so full of enthusiasm,
has come out of these Catacombs like a rat out of a sewer," said Caesar.

"And why so?" asked Don Calixto.

"Because of the things the monk said. He was really scandalous."

"It is true," said the Canon gravely. "I never would have believed it."

_"Roma veduta, fede perduta,"_ said Don Calixto. "And as for you,
Caesar, hasn't this visit interested you?"

"Yes, I have been interested in trying to keep from catching cold."

AGRO ROMANO

The landau that the Breton family was in took the Appian, Way, and
Caesar and Don Calixto's carriage followed behind it.

They passed the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and were able to look ahead
along the old road, on whose sides one sees the remains of aqueducts,
which at evening-fall have a grandeur so imposing. Don Calixto and Don
Justo were discussing a question of home politics.

On them magnificently indifferent, the broken sepulchres, the abandoned
arches invaded by grass, the vestiges of a gigantic civilization, did
not produce the least impression.

The coachman pointed out Frascati on the slope of a mountain, Albano,
Grotta Ferrata, and Tivoli.

Caesar felt the grandeur of the landscape; the enormous sadness of the
remnants of aqueducts, which had the colour of rusty iron, beneath a sky
of pink clouds.

At dusk they turned back. Caesar felt a weight on his spirits. The
walls of the Baths of Caracalla looked threatening to him. Those great
towering thick walls,