worse than mosquitos in August. There's no getting a
minute's peace; wherever one goes, there's always a spy hanging
about. Even right up in the hills, where they used to be so shy about
venturing, they have taken to coming in bands of three or four--haven't
they, Gino? That's why we arranged for you to meet Domenichino in the
town."

"Yes; but why Brisighella? A frontier town is always full of spies."

"Brisighella just now is a capital place. It's swarming with pilgrims
from all parts of the country."

"But it's not on the way to anywhere."

"It's not far out of the way to Rome, and many of the Easter Pilgrims
are going round to hear Mass there."

"I d-d-didn't know there was anything special in Brisighella."

"There's the Cardinal. Don't you remember his going to Florence to
preach last December? It's that same Cardinal Montanelli. They say he
made a great sensation."

"I dare say; I don't go to hear sermons."

"Well, he has the reputation of being a saint, you see."

"How does he manage that?"

"I don't know. I suppose it's because he gives away all his income, and
lives like a parish priest with four or five hundred scudi a year."

"Ah!" interposed the man called Gino; "but it's more than that. He
doesn't only give away money; he spends his whole life in looking
after the poor, and seeing the sick are properly treated, and hearing
complaints and grievances from morning till night. I'm no fonder of
priests than you are, Michele, but Monsignor Montanelli is not like
other Cardinals."

"Oh, I dare say he's more fool than knave!" said Michele. "Anyhow, the
people are mad after him, and the last new freak is for the pilgrims to
go round that way to ask his blessing. Domenichino thought of going as a
pedlar, with a basket of cheap crosses and rosaries. The people like to
buy those things and ask the Cardinal to touch them; then they put them
round their babies' necks to keep off the evil eye."

"Wait a minute. How am I to go--as a pilgrim? This make-up suits me
p-pretty well, I think; but it w-won't do for me to show myself
in Brisighella in the same character that I had here; it would be
ev-v-vidence against you if I get taken."

"You won't get taken; we have a splendid disguise for you, with a
passport and all complete."

"What is it?"

"An old Spanish pilgrim--a repentant brigand from the Sierras. He fell
ill in Ancona last year, and one of our friends took him on board a
trading-vessel out of ch