nterposition of saints or the gaudy ceremonials of the
Church were spoken of, she heard the subject with indifference, if not
apathy. The consideration of self could, however, always bring her back;
and it was ever a successful flattery to assure her how fervently such
a cardinal prayed for her "right-mindedness," and how eagerly even
his Holiness looked forward to the moment of counting her among his
children.

Her very tastes those same tastes that ascetic Protestantism was always
cavilling at were beautifully Roman. The Church liked display. Witness
her magnificence and splendor, her glorious cathedrals, the pomp and
grandeur of her ceremonial! As to music, the choir of the "Duomo" was
seraphic, and needed not the association of the dim vaulted aisles, the
distant altar, and the checkered rays of stained-glass windows to wrap
the soul in a fervor of enthusiasm. Even beauty was cherished by the
Church, and the fair Madonnas were types of an admiring love that was
beautifully catholic in its worship.

With all this, the work of conversion was a Penelope's web, that must
each day be begun anew, for, as the hour of the Cascini drew nigh, Lady
Hester's carriage drew up, and mesmerism, miracles, and all gave way to
the fresher interests of courtly loungers, chit-chat, and "bouquets of
camellias."

For the next hour or so, her mind was occupied with the gossiping
stories of Florentine life, its surface details all recounted by the
simpering dandies who gathered around her carriage; its deeper not
unfrequently darker histories being the province of Mr. Albert Jekyl.
Then home to luncheon, for, as Haggerstone related, she dined always
after the Opera, and it was then, somewhere verging on midnight, that
she really began to live. Then, in all the blaze of dress and jewels,
with beauty little impaired by years, and a manner the perfection of
that peculiar school to which she attached herself, she was indeed a
most attractive person.

Kate Dalton's life was, of course, precisely the same. Except the few
hours given to controversial topics, and which she passed in reading,
and the occasional change from driving to riding in the Cascini, Kate's
day was exactly that of her friend. Not, however, with the same results;
for while one was wearied with the same routine of unvarying pleasure,
tired of the monotonous circle of amusement, the other became each day
more and more enamored of a life so unchanging in its happiness. What
w