ld frock-coat. Every English word
he spoke was supplemented by an Italian vowel, so that his language,
though it was perfectly fluent and correct, sounded quite foreign. His
extraordinary height and leanness made him grotesque to look at, but
neither the comicality of his figure nor his theatrical voice and
gesture could kill the fact that he was in earnest, and I felt an
immediate liking for him.

"I am not here," he said, "on a visit of impertinence. I have an actual
object. I am charged by the Conte di Rossano to tell you that a meeting
has been already arranged to welcome him to London. It will be held
to-night, and he beseeches you through me to be present at it."

I demurred at first, for I had no mind to be publicly embraced by the
tatterdemalion patriots I had seen in the crowd that morning. But when
my visitor incidentally mentioned the fact that Miss Rossano would
accompany her father, I gave him my promise at once.

The ragged nobleman promised to call and conduct me to the place of
meeting, and so went his way with a torrent of thanks and a rage of
gesticulation.

CHAPTER VIII

I found Miss Rossano and her father in the vestry of a Wesleyan
Methodist chapel. The room was crammed almost to suffocation, and there
was such a crowd outside that it took us ten minutes' hard fighting to
reach the neighboring school-room in which the public meeting was to be
held. The way was cleared at last, and a score or so of us filed on
to the platform, which was erected at one end of the crowded hall. My
visitor of that afternoon immediately preceded Miss Rossano and the
count, and I followed on their heels.

As we reached the platform the gaunt phantom swung round upon us, and in
a voice like the call of a trumpet announced "The Exile."

I had already had a taste of the patriotic enthusiasm of the crowd that
morning, but I had never seen anything which did more than approach the
delirious excitement which set in at this announcement.

There was not a seat in the body of the room, and the men who occupied
the floor were packed like herrings in a barrel. One could see nothing
but a great wave of swarthy, eager faces, and could hear nothing but a
tumult like the roaring of the sea. There was hardly a man in the whole
assemblage who was not weeping with excitement; and though I have rather
a knack of keeping a cool head under such circumstances, I have to own
that I was deeply moved.

It seemed impossible to sto