are near when I am going to judgment,
come in and see how emphatically I shall demand the holy oils, even
before a priest be willing to bring them."

"It seems strange," Horace commented, "very strange. I cannot get at
your point of view at all."

Then he went on to ask questions rapidly, and Monsignor had to explain
the meaning of his title, a hundred things connected with his
priesthood, and to answer many objections to his explanations; until the
night had worn on to bedtime, and the crowd of guests began to depart
from the verandahs. It was all so interesting to Horace. In the priest
and his conversation he had caught a glimpse of a new world both strange
and fascinating. Curious too was the profound indifference of men like
himself--college men--to its existence. It did not seem possible that
the Roman idea could grow into proportions under the bilious eyes of the
omniscient Saxon, and not a soul be aware of its growth! However,
Monsignor was a pleasant man, a true college lad, an interesting talker,
with music in his voice, and a sincere eye. He was not a
controversialist, but a critic, and he did not seem to mind when Horace
went off into a dream of Sonia, and asked questions far from the
subject.

Long afterwards Endicott recalled a peculiarity of this night, which
escaped his notice at the time: his sensitiveness to every detail of
their surroundings, to the colors of the room, to the shades of meaning
in the words of the Monsignor, to his tricks of speech and tone, quite
unusual in Horace's habit. Sonia complained that he never could tell her
anything clear or significant of places he had seen. The room which had
been secured from the landlord was the parlor of the tavern; long and
low, colonial in the very smell of the tapestry carpet, with doors and
mantel that made one think of John Adams and General Washington. The
walls had a certain terror in them, a kind of suspense, as when a jury
sits petrified while their foreman announces a verdict of death. A long
line of portraits in oil produced this impression. The faces of ancient
neighbors, of the Adams, the Endicotts, the Bradburys, severe Puritans,
for whom the name of priest meant a momentary stoppage of the heart,
looked coldly and precisely straight out from their frames on the
Monsignor. Horace fancied that they exchanged glances. What fun it would
have been to see the entire party move out from their frames, and put
the wearer of the Roman purple to