ving them from me in English, and giving back
to me the sweet Italian words; and who had come to think herself quite
an astronomer. Father Secchi refused at once. He said I was to meet him
at the Church of St. Ignasio at one and a half hours before Ave Marie,
and he would conduct me through the church into the observatory. My
servant might come into the church with me. The Ave Marie bell rings
half an hour after sunset.

"At the appointed time, the next fine day,--and all days seem to be
fine,--we set out on our mission.

"When we entered the church we saw, far in the distance, Father Secchi,
standing just behind a pillar. He slipped out a little way, as much as
to say, 'I await you,' but did not come forward to meet us; so the woman
and I passed along through the rows of kneeling worshippers, by the
strolling students, and past the lounging tourists--who, guide-book in
hand, are seen in every foreign church--until we came to the standpoint
from which the Father had been watching us.

"Then the Italian woman put up a petition, not one word of which I could
understand, but the gestures and the pointing showed that she begged to
go on and enter the monastery and see the observatory. Father Secchi
said, 'No, the Holy Father gave permission to one only,' and alone I
entered the monastery walls.

"Through long halls, up winding staircases, occasionally stopped by some
priest who touched his broad hat and asked 'Parlate Italiano?'
occasionally passed by students, often stopped by pictures on the
walls,--once to be introduced to a professor; then through the library
of the monastery, full of manuscripts on which monks had worked away
their lives; then through the astronomical library, where young
astronomers were working away theirs, we reached at length the dome and
the telescope.

"One observatory is so much like another that it does not seem worth
while to describe Father Secchi's. This observatory has a telescope
about the size of that at Washington (about twelve inches). Secchi had
no staff, and no prescribed duties. The base of the observatory was the
solid foundation of the old Roman building. The church was built in
1650, and the monastery in part at that time, certainly the dome of the
room in which was the meridian instrument.

"The staircase is cut out of the old Roman walls, which no roll of
carriage, except that of the earthquake chariot, can shake.

"Having no prescribed duties, Secchi could follow his fa