o
so-and-so, or that we should not do so-and-so." I at first thought that
he must have given them something, some philtre or the like, but one of
the English maid-servants, who had a kind of respect for me, and who saw
much more behind the scenes than I did, informed me that he was
continually instilling strange notions into their heads, striving, by
every possible method, to make them despise the religion of their own
land, and take up that of the foreign country in which they were. And
sure enough, in a little time, the girls had altogether left off going to
an English chapel, and were continually visiting places of Italian
worship. The old governor, it is true, still went to his church, but he
appeared to be hesitating between two opinions; and once, when he was at
dinner, he said to two or three English friends that, since he had become
better acquainted with it, he had conceived a much more favourable
opinion of the Catholic religion than he had previously entertained. In
a word, the priest ruled the house, and everything was done according to
his will and pleasure by degrees he persuaded the young ladies to drop
their English acquaintances, whose place he supplied with Italians,
chiefly females. My poor old governor would not have had a person to
speak to--for he never could learn the language--but for two or three
Englishmen who used to come occasionally and take a bottle with him in a
summer-house, whose company he could not be persuaded to resign,
notwithstanding the entreaties of his daughters, instigated by the
priest, whose grand endeavour seemed to be to render the minds of all
three foolish, for his own ends. And if he was busy above stairs with
the governor, there was another busy below with us poor English servants,
a kind of subordinate priest, a low Italian; as he could speak no
language but his own, he was continually jabbering to us in that, and by
hearing him the maids and myself contrived to pick up a good deal of the
language, so that we understood most that was said, and could speak it
very fairly; and the themes of his jabber were the beauty and virtues of
one whom he called Holy Mary, and the power and grandeur of one whom he
called the Holy Father; and he told us that we should shortly have an
opportunity of seeing the Holy Father, who could do anything he liked
with Holy Mary: in the meantime we had plenty of opportunities of seeing
Holy Mary, for in every church, chapel, and convent to w