hich is
said to restore the sick, should be sent to her aunt, who was near to
death.

At the same time she wrote to an auctioneer in the Via due Macelli,
requesting him to call upon her. The man came immediately. He had little
beady eyes, which ranged round the dining-room and seemed to see
everything except Roma herself.

"I wish to sell up my furniture," said Roma.

"All of it?"

"Except what is in my aunt's room and the room of her nurse, and such
things in the kitchen, the servants' apartments, and my own bedroom as
are absolutely necessary for present purposes."

"Quite right. When?"

"Within a week if possible."

The Bambino came in a carriage with two horses, and the people in the
street went down on their knees as it passed. One of the friars in
priest's surplice carried it in a box with the lid open, and two friars
in brown habits walked before it with lifted candles. But as the painted
image in its scarlet clothes and jewels entered the Countess's bedroom
with its grim and ghostly procession, and was borne like a baby mummy to
the foot of her bed, it terrified her, and she screamed.

"Take it away!" she shrieked. "Do you want to frighten me out of my
life? Take it away!"

The grim and ghostly procession went out. Its visit had lasted thirty
seconds and cost a hundred francs.

When the doctor came again the outline of the Countess's writhing form
had shrunk to the lines of a skeleton under the ruffled counterpane.

"It's not the Bambino you want--it's the priest," he said, and then the
poor mortal who was still afraid of dying began to whimper.

"And, Sister," said the doctor, "as the Countess suffers so much pain,
you may increase the opiate from a dessert-spoonful to a tablespoonful,
and give it twice as frequently."

That evening the Sister went home for a few hours' leave, and Roma took
her place by the sick-bed. The patient was more selfish and exacting
than ever, but Roma had begun to feel a softening towards the poor
tortured being, and was trying her best to do her duty.

It was dusk, and the Countess, who had just taken her opiate in the
increased doses, was out of pain, and wished to make her toilet. Roma
brought up the night-table and the mirror, the rouge-pot, the rabbit's
foot, the puff, the pencil, and the other appurtenances of her aunt's
toilet-box. And when the fragile thing, so soon to be swallowed up by
the earth in its great earthquake, had been propped by pillows, she
beg