oach
myself with. So why not leave me alone, since I'm fond of my employers
and attend properly to my duties?"

She burst into a frank laugh. "Ah!" she resumed, "when I was told that
another priest was coming, just as if we hadn't enough already, I
couldn't help growling to myself. But you look like a good young man,
Monsieur l'Abbe, and I feel sure we shall get on well together.... I
really don't know why I'm telling you all this--probably it's because
you've come from yonder, and because the Contessina takes an interest in
you. At all events, you'll excuse me, won't you, Monsieur l'Abbe? And
take my advice, stay here and rest to-day; don't be so foolish as to go
running about their tiring city. There's nothing very amusing to be seen
in it, whatever they may say to the contrary."

When Pierre found himself alone, he suddenly felt overwhelmed by all the
fatigue of his journey coupled with the fever of enthusiasm that had
consumed him during the morning. And as though dazed, intoxicated by the
hasty meal which he had just made--a couple of eggs and a cutlet--he
flung himself upon the bed with the idea of taking half an hour's rest.
He did not fall asleep immediately, but for a time thought of those
Boccaneras, with whose history he was partly acquainted, and of whose
life in that deserted and silent palace, instinct with such dilapidated
and melancholy grandeur, he began to dream. But at last his ideas grew
confused, and by degrees he sunk into sleep amidst a crowd of shadowy
forms, some tragic and some sweet, with vague faces which gazed at him
with enigmatical eyes as they whirled before him in the depths of
dreamland.

The Boccaneras had supplied two popes to Rome, one in the thirteenth, the
other in the fifteenth century, and from those two favoured ones, those
all-powerful masters, the family had formerly derived its vast
fortune--large estates in the vicinity of Viterbo, several palaces in
Rome, enough works of art to fill numerous spacious galleries, and a pile
of gold sufficient to cram a cellar. The family passed as being the most
pious of the Roman _patriziato_, a family of burning faith whose sword
had always been at the service of the Church; but if it were the most
believing family it was also the most violent, the most disputatious,
constantly at war, and so fiercely savage that the anger of the
Boccaneras had become proverbial. And thence came their arms, the winged
dragon spitting flames, and the fier