k in her throat, and she was relieved to be no longer under
the necessity of uttering them.

The room she had taken was on the sixth floor, and from the one
narrow window she could look across the yellow swirl of Tiber towards
Monte Mario. She had set up her household gods. The plaster bust of
Dante, and her books, on the rickety wooden table by her bedside, and,
such as it was, this place was home.

Camille went by a night train, and Olive began to "see Rome" on the
following morning. She took the tram to the Piazza Venezia and walked
from thence to the church of Santa Maria Ara Coeli.

The flight of steps to the west door is very long, and she climbed
slowly, stopping once or twice to take breath and look back at the
crowded roofs and many church domes of Rome, and at the green heights
of the Janiculan hill beyond, with the bronze figure of Garibaldi on
his horse, dominant, and very clear against the sky.

The cripple at the door lifted the heavy leather curtain for her and
she put a soldo into his outstretched hand as she went in. The church
seemed very still, very quiet, after the clamour of the streets. The
acrid scent of incense was as the breath of spent prayer. Little
yellow flames flickered in the shrine lamps before each altar, but it
was early yet and for the moment no mass was being said. An old,
white-haired monk was sweeping the worn pavement. He was swathed in a
blue linen apron, and his rusty brown frock was tucked up about his
ankles. A lean black cat followed him, mewing, and now and then he
stopped his work to stroke it. There was a great stack of chairs by
the door, and a few were scattered about the aisles and occupied by
stray worshippers, women with handkerchiefs tied over their heads in
deference to St Paul's expressed wishes, two or three old men, and
some peasants with their market baskets. A be-ribboned nurse carrying
a baby had just come in to see the Sacro Bambino, and Olive followed
them into the sacristy and saw the child laid down before the
bedizened, red-cheeked wooden doll in the glass case. As they passed
out again the monk who was in attendance gave Olive a coloured card
with a prayer printed on the back. She heard him asking what was the
matter with the little one. The woman lifted the lace veil from the
tiny face and showed him the sightless eyes. He crossed himself.
"_Poveretto! Dio vi benedica!_"

As Olive left the sacristy a tall man came across the aisle towards
her. It w