in Naples. Wait until I come back, mother; I
shall not be long."

But it was not white-rose scent that was in her mind as she went rapidly
away and got ready to go out; and it was not in search of any chemist's
shop that she made her way to the Via Roma. Why, she had asked herself
that morning, as she stood on the balcony, and drank in the sunlight and
the sweet air, should she take the poor tired mother with her on this
adventure? If there was danger, she would brave it by herself. She
walked quickly--perhaps anxious to make the first plunge.

She had no difficulty in finding the Vico Carlo, though it was one of
the narrowest and steepest of the small, narrow, and steep lanes leading
off the main thoroughfare into the masses of tall and closely-built
houses on the side of the hill. But when she looked up and recognized
the little plate bearing the name at the corner, she turned a little
pale; something, she knew not what, was now so near.

And as she turned into this narrow and squalid little alley, it seemed
as if her eyes, through some excitement or other, observed the objects
around her with a strange intensity. She could remember each and every
one of them afterward--the fruit-sellers bawling, and the sellers of
acidulated drinks out-roaring them; the shoemakers already at work at
their open stalls; mules laden with vegetables; a negro monk, with his
black woolly head above the brown hood; a venerable letter-writer at a
small table, spectacles on nose and pen in hand, with two women
whispering to him what he was to write for them. She made her way up the
steep lane, through the busy, motley, malodorous crowd, until she
reached the corner pointed out to her by Calabressa.

But he had not told her which way to turn, and for a second or two she
stood in the middle of the crossing, uncertain and bewildered. A
brawny-looking fellow, apparently a butcher, addressed her; she
murmured some thanks, and hastily turned away, taking to the right. She
had not gone but a few yards when she saw the entrance to a court which,
at least, was certainly as dark as that described by Calabressa. She was
half afraid that the man who had spoken to her was following her; and
so, without further hesitation, she plunged into this gloomy court-yard,
which was apparently quite deserted.

She was alone, and she looked around. A second convinced her that she
had hit upon the place, as it were by accident. Over her head swung an
oil-lamp, t