_ excommunicate us! In these times, one's only hope of
paradise lies in being excommunicated."

"Oh, my dear master," said the old man, falling on his knees, "what is
to become of us? That I should live to hear you talk like an infidel and
unbeliever!"

"Why, hear you, poor old fool! Did you never hear in Dante of the Popes
that are burning in hell? Wasn't Dante a Christian, I beg to know?"

"Oh, my Lord, my Lord! a religion got out of poetry, books, and romances
won't do to die by. We have no business with the affairs of the Head of
the Church,--it's the Lord's appointment. We have only to shut our eyes
and obey. It may all do well enough to talk so when you are young and
fresh; but when sickness and death come, then we _must_ have religion,--
and if we have gone out of the only true Roman Catholic Apostolic
Church, what becomes of our souls? Ah, I misdoubted about your taking so
much to poetry, though my poor mistress was so proud of it; but these
poets are all heretics, my Lord,--that's my firm belief. But, my Lord,
if you do go to hell, I'm going there with you; I'm sure I never could
show my face among the saints, and you not there."

"Well, come, then, my poor Paolo," said the cavalier, stretching out his
hand to his serving-man, "don't take it to heart so. Many a better man
than I has been excommunicated and cursed from toe to crown, and been
never a whit the worse for it. There's Jerome Savonarola there in
Florence--a most holy man, they say, who has had revelations straight
from heaven--has been excommunicated; but he preaches and gives the
sacraments all the same, and nobody minds it."

"Well, it's all a maze to me," said the old serving-man, shaking his
white head. "I can't see into it, I don't dare to open my eyes for fear
I should get to be a heretic; it seems to me that everything is getting
mixed up together. But one must hold on to one's religion; because,
after we have lost everything in this world, it would be too bad to burn
in hell forever at the end of that."

"Why, Paolo, I am a good Christian. I believe, with all my heart, in the
Christian religion, like the fellow in Boccaccio,--because I think it
must be from God, or else the Popes and Cardinals would have had it out
of the world long ago. Nothing but the Lord Himself could have kept it
against them."

"There you are, my dear master, with your romances! Well, well, well! I
don't know how it'll end. I say my prayers, and try not to inquire