and professed atheists,
determined on the destruction of both throne and altar by any means,
however horrible. Their victims had been drawn, without seeing where
they were going, into a vortex of disorder, and the soldiers had
defended society and the law. Happily the casualties were few. The only
fatal incident had been the death of a child, seven years of age, the
son of a workman. The people of Rome had to congratulate themselves on
the promptness of a Government which had reinstated authority with so
small a loss of blood.

Roma remembered what Rossi had said about Elena--"Think of Elena when
she awakes in the morning, alone with her terrible grief"--and putting
on a plain dark cloth dress she set off for the Piazza Navona.

It was eleven o'clock, and the sun was shining on the melting snow. Rome
was like a dead city. The breath of revolution had passed over it.
Broken tiles lay on the pavement of the slushy streets, and here and
there were the remains of abandoned barricades. The shops, which are the
eyes of a city, were nearly all closed and asleep.

At a flower-shop, which was opened to her knock, Roma bought a wreath of
white chrysanthemums. A group of men and women stood at the door in the
Piazza Navona, and she received their kisses on her hands. The
Garibaldian followed her up the stairs, and his old wife, who stood at
the top, called her "Little Sister," and then burst into tears.

The boy lay on the couch, just where Roma had first seen him, when David
Rossi was lifting him up asleep. He might have been asleep now, so
peaceful was his expression under the mysterious seal of death. The
blinds were drawn, and the sun came through them with a yellow light.
Four candles were burning on chairs at the head and two at the feet. The
little body was still dressed in the gay clothes of the festival, and
the cocked hat and gilt-headed mace lay beside it. But the chubby hands
were clasped over a tiny crucifix, and the hair of the shock head was
brushed smooth and flat.

"There he is," said Elena, in a cracked voice, and she went down on her
knees between the candles.

Roma, who could not speak, put the wreath of chrysanthemums on the brave
little breast, and knelt by the mother's side. At that they all broke
down together.

The old Garibaldian wiped his rheumy eyes and began to talk of David
Rossi. He was as fond of Joseph as if the boy had been his own son. But
what had become of the Honourable? Before daybrea