ng out on the olive woods; then he tells me stories of
conversions and miracles, and then perhaps we go into the Sacristy and
have a reverent little poke out of relics. Fancy a great carved
cupboard in a vaulted chamber full of most precious things (the box
which the Holy Virgin's veil used to be kept in, to begin with), and
leave to rummage in it at will! Things that are only shown twice in
the year or so, with fumigation! all the congregation on their knees;
and the sacristan and I having a great heap of them on the table at
once, like a dinner service! I really looked with great respect at St.
Francis's old camel-hair dress.

I am obliged to go to Rome to-morrow, however, and to Naples on
Saturday. My witch of Sicily[6] expects me this day week, and she's
going to take me such lovely drives, and talks of "excursions" which I
see by the map are thirty miles away. I wonder if she thinks me so
horribly old that it's quite proper. It will be very nice if she does,
but not flattering. I know her mother can't go with her, I suppose her
maid will. If she wants any other chaperon I won't go.

She's really very beautiful, I believe, to some people's tastes, (I
shall be horribly disappointed if she isn't, in her own dark style,)
and she writes, next to Susie, the loveliest letters I ever get.

Now, Susie, mind, you're to be a very good child while I'm away, and
never to burn any more stories; and above all, you're to write me just
what comes into your head, and ever to believe me your loving

J. R.

[Footnote 5: "The Bee and Narcissus."]

[Footnote 6: Miss Amy Yule. See "Praeterita", Vol. III., Chap. vii.]

* * * * *

NAPLES, _2d May, 1874_.

I heard of your great sorrow[7] from Joan six days ago, and have not
been able to write since. Nothing silences me so much as sorrow, and
for this of yours I have no comfort. I write only that you may know
that I am thinking of you, and would help you if I could. And I write
to-day because your lovely letters and your lovely old age have been
forced into my thoughts often by dreadful contrast during these days
in Italy. You who are so purely and brightly happy in all natural and
simple things, seem now to belong to another and a younger world. And
your letters have been to me like the pure air of Yewdale Crags
breathed among the Pontine Marshes; but you mus