d destroy the
decorations of a _salon_ in which they were asked to pass the evening,
preferring to sit down amid ruin and wreck rather than eat their supper
at a well-ordered and well-furnished board.

To Jekyl's eyes it was a very nice world as it was, if people would
only let it alone. "A world of bright eyes and soft tresses and white
shoulders, with Donizetti's music and Moet's champagne, was not to
be despised, after all." He had no sympathies, therefore, with these
disturbers; but he was too well bred ever to oppose himself to the
wishes of the company, and so he seemed to concur with what he could not
prevent. He could have wished that the Italians would take a lesson from
the Swiss, who only revolt when there is nothing else to do, and never
take to cutting each other's throats during the season when there are
travellers to be cheated; "but, perhaps," said he, "they will soon
get enough of it, and learn that their genius lies more in ballets and
bonbons than in bombs and rockets."

Of such various hopes and feelings were the party made up who now
awaited D'Esmonde's presence at the supper-table. It was past midnight,
and they had been expecting him with impatience for above an hour back.
Twice had the canonico fallen asleep, and started up with terror at what
he called a "fantasma di fame." Jekyl had eaten sardines and oysters
till he was actually starving. Lady Hester was fidgety and fretful,
as waiting always made her; while Norwood walked from the room to the
terrace, and out upon the grass to listen, uneasy lest any mischance
should have befallen one who was so deeply involved in their
confidences.

"It is but three or four and twenty miles to Milan," muttered Norwood;
"he might easily have been here by this."

"The road is infested with banditti," growled out the padre.

"Banditti!" said Norwood, contemptuously. But whether the sneer was
intended for the cut-throats' courage, or the folly of men who would
expect any booty from a priest, is hard to say; clearly the padre took
it in the latter sense, for he rejoined,----

"Even so, Milordo. When I was cure of Bergamo, they stopped me one night
on the Lecco road. A bishop was on a visit with me, and I had gone up to
Milan to procure some fish for our Friday's dinner. Oime! what a turbot
it was, and how deliciously it looked at the bottom of the calessino,
with the lobsters keeping guard at either side of it, and a small basket
of Genoa oysters,--those r