n a
monarchy. But never was a monarchy so mild-mannered or seated so firmly,
for the present at least, in the affection and reason of its people.

This is not the place (as writers say who have not prepared themselves
with the requisite ideas at a given point) to speak of the situation in
Rome; and I meant only to note that there are more ecclesiastics than
conscripts to be seen there. Of all the varying costumes of the varying
schools, none is so pleasing, so vivid, as that of the German students
as they rush swiftly by in their flying robes of scarlet. The red
matches the ruddy health in their cheeks, and there is a sort of
gladness in their fling that wins the liking as well as the looking; so
that almost one would not mind being a German student of theology one's
self. There are other-costumes running in color from violet, and blue
with orange sashes, to unrelieved black and black trimmed with red; but
I cannot remember which nationality wears which.

[Illustration: 24 THE MOSAICS UNDER THE CAPUCHIN CHURCH]

I am not sure but one sees as many priests in Rome now as in the times
when they ruled it; and I am no such Protestant that I will pretend I do
not like a monsignore when I meet him, either in the street or at
afternoon tea, as one sometimes may. I have no grudge against priests of
any rank; but I did not seek to see them at the functions, as I used in
the old days to do. Shall I say that I now rather tolerated than
welcomed myself there through the hospitality which so freely opens the
churches of the Church to all comers of whatever creed? What right had
I, a heretic and recusant, to come staring and standing round where the
faithful were kneeling and praying? If we could conceive of our
fast-locked conventicles being thrown as freely open, could we conceive
of Catholics wandering up and down their naves and aisles while the
hymning or preaching went on? After being so high-minded in the matter,
shall I confess that I was a good deal kept out of the churches by the
cold in them? It was a sort of stored cold, much greater than that
outside, though there was something warming to the fancy, at least, in
the smoke and smell of the incense.

Even with the Church of the Capuchins, which we lived opposite, I was
dilatory, though in my mediaeval days it had been one of the first
places to which I hurried. In those days everybody said you must be sure
and go to the Capuchins', because Guide's "St. Michael and the En