e on their legs.

'We are poor, miserably poor, Signore!' cried the old man piteously;
'mere "vagabonds," and no more.'

'We have not a Bajocclo among us, Signore mio,' blubbered out the old
woman.

An honest burst of laughter from Gerald, far more reassuring than words,
soon satisfied them that their fears were needless.

'Who are you, then?' cried the girl, as she darted her piercing black
eyes toward him; 'and why are you here?'

'The world is wide, and open to all of us, _cara mia_,' said the youth
good-humouredly. 'Don't be angry with me because I 'm not a brigand.'

'He says truly,' said the old man.

'_Sangue dei Santi_, but you have given me a hearty fright, boy, what
ever brought you here!' said the fat old woman, as she wiped the hot
drops from her steaming face.

There is some marvellous freemasonry in poverty--some subtle sympathy
links poor men together--for scarcely had Gerald told that he was
destitute and penniless as themselves, than these poor outcasts bade him
a frank welcome among them, and invited him to a share of their little
scanty supper.

'I 'll warrant me that you have drawn a low number in the conscription,
boy; and that's the reason you have fled from home,' said the old woman;
and Gerald laughed good-humouredly, as though accepting the suggestion
as a happy guess; nor was he sorry to be spared the necessity of
recounting his story.

'But why not be a soldier?' broke in Marietta.

'Because it's a dog's life,' retorted the hag savagely.

'I don't think so,' said Gerald. 'When I saw the noble guard of his
Holiness prancing into the Piazza del Popolo, I longed to be one of
them. They were all glittering with gold and polished steel, and their
horses bounded and caracoled as if impatient for a charge.'

'Ah!' sighed the old man drearily, 'there's only one happy road in this
life.'

'And what may that be, Babbo?' said Gerald, addressing him by the
familiar title the girl had given him.

'A Frate's, boy, a Frate's. I don't care whether he be a Dominican or an
Ignorantine. Though, myself, I like the Ignorantines. Theirs is truly
a blessed existence: no wants--no cares--no thoughts for the morrow! I
never watched one of them stepping along, with firm foot and sack on
his arm, that I didn't say to myself, "There's freedom--there's
light-heartedness."'

'I should have called your own a pleasanter life.'

'Mine!' groaned he.

'Ay, Babbo, and so is it,' burst in the girl, in an e