ner, "is it true
that the Holy Virgin hates heretics and that they can never go to
heaven?"

The good padre was evidently not prepared for such a question. He
gazed at Annunciata for a moment in helpless bewilderment, then
coughed in his red bandanna handkerchief, took a deliberate pinch of
snuff and began:

"The Holy Virgin is gracious, child, and she hates no one. But little
girls should not trouble their heads with things that do not concern
them."

"But this does concern me, padre," retorted the girl eagerly. "I went
this morning with Signore Giovanni, the stranger who is lodging with
us,--for he is a very good and kind man, padre; I went with him to the
Aracoeli to see the blessed Bambino and the shepherds and the Holy
Virgin. But he did not kneel, and when I told him of the wonderful
things which the Bambino had done, he would not believe me, padre, and
he even once laughed in my face."

"Then he is not a good man," said the padre emphatically, "and he will
not go to heaven, unless he changes his faith and his conduct before
God takes him away."

Cranbrook, who had made several vain attempts to call attention to his
presence, now rose and through the window re-entered his room. The
snatch of the conversation which he had overheard had made him uneasy
and had spoiled his happy Homeric mood. He was only too willing to put
the most flattering construction upon Annunciata's solicitude for his
fate in the hereafter, but he had to admit to himself, that there was
something in her tone and in the frank directness of her manner which
precluded such an interpretation. He had floated along, as it were, in
a state of delicious semi-consciousness during the six weeks since he
first entered this house. He had established himself firmly, as he
believed, in the favor of every member of the family, from Antonio
himself to the two-year-old baby, Babetta, who spent her days
contentedly in running from one end to the other of a large marble
sarcophagus, situated under a tall stone pine, a dozen steps from the
house. Monna Nina could then keep watch over her from the window while
at work, and the high, sculptured sides of the sarcophagus prevented
Babetta from indulging her propensity for running away. Pietro, a
picturesque vagabond of twelve, who sold patriotic match-boxes with
the portraits of Garibaldi and Vittorio Emanuele, had been bribed into
the stanchest partisanship for the foreigner by a ticket to the monkey
theatre