"All right."

"And if you are still melancholy, we will leave you there."

_THE ABBEY_

The next day, after lunch, Kennedy and Caesar went to visit the abbey of
Sant' Anselmo on the Aventine. The abbot, Hildebrand, was a friend
of Kennedy's, and like him an Englishman.

They took a carriage and Kennedy told it to stop at the church of Santa
Sabina.

"It is still too early to go to the abbey. Let us look at this church,
which is the best preserved of all the old Roman ones."

They entered the church; but it was so cold there that Caesar went out
again directly and waited in the porch. There was a man there selling
rosaries and photographs who spoke scarcely any Italian or French, but
did speak Spanish. Probably he was a Jew.

Caesar asked him where they manufactured those religious toys, and the
pedlar told him in Westphalia.

Kennedy went to look at a picture by Sassoferrato, which is in one of
the chapels, and meanwhile the rosary-seller showed the church door to
Caesar and explained the different bas-reliefs, cut in cypress wood by
Greek artists of the V Century, and representing scenes from the Old and
New Testaments.

Kennedy came back, they got into the carriage again, and they drove to
the Benedictine abbey.

"Is the abbot Hildebrandus here?" asked Kennedy.

Out came the abbot, a man of about fifty, with a gold cross on his
breast. They exchanged a few friendly words, and the superior showed
them the convent.

The refectory was clean and very spacious; the long table of shining
wood; the floor made of mosaic. The crypt held a statue, which Caesar
assumed must be of Sant' Anselmo. The church was severe, without
ornaments, without pictures; it had a primitive air, with its columns of
fine granite that looked like marble. A monk was playing the harmonium,
and in the opaque veiled light, the thin music gave a strange impression
of something quite outside this life.

Afterwards they crossed a large court with palm-trees. They went up to
the second story, and down a corridor with cells, each of which had on
the lintel the name of the patron saint of the respective monk. Each
door had a card with the name of the occupant of the room.

It looked more like a bath-house than a monastery. The cells were
comfortable inside, without any air of sadness; each held a bed, a
divan, and a small bookcase.

By a window at the end of the passage, one could see, far away, the
Alban Hills, looking like a blue