ews,
planted without preparation in you, would bear good fruit. But I advise
you to study Catholicism carefully, with Signor Selva's help; for there
is not one conscientious Protestant who knows it well."

"You will not come to Subiaco?" Noemi inquired timidly.

A note of hidden melancholy rang in her voice, and aroused in
Benedetto's heart a sense of sweet pain, which at once turned to fear,
so new was it.

"No," said he, "I think not."

Noemi wished, and still did not wish to say she was sorry. She
pronounced some confused words.

They heard some one in the ante-room. Noemi bowed, and Benedetto doing
the same, the interview came to an end, without any further leave
taking.

The Duchess also was anxious to speak with Benedetto. She brought her
companions, both male and female, with her. No longer young, but still
frivolous, half superstitious, half sceptical, egotistical but not
heartless, she was devoted to the consumptive daughter of her old
coachman, Having heard of the Saint of Jenne and his miracles, she had
arranged this excursion, partly for amusement, partly to satisfy her
curiosity, and she wished to ascertain if it would be wiser to have
the Saint come to Rome, or to send the girl to him. At the house of a
cardinal, her cousin, she had become acquainted with one of the priests
now staying at Jenne, This man, having met her, had given her his own
opinion of the Saint, announcing the downfall of his reputation. But, as
the Duchess had little confidence in any priest, and was curious to
know a man to whom such a romantic past was attributed, and as her
companions--one woman in particular--shared her curiosity she resolved,
at any cost, to find a means of approaching him.

An elderly, English gentlewoman was of her party; a lady famous for her
wealth and her peculiar _toilettes_, for her theosophic and Christian
mysticism, metaphysically in love with the Pope and also with the
Duchess who laughed at her friends. These friends, on beholding
Benedetto in that strange outfit, exchanged glances and smiles which
very nearly became giggles; but the elderly Englishwoman forestalling
them all constituted herself their spokeswoman. She said, in bad French,
that she was aware she was speaking to a man of culture, that she, with
her friends, of both sexes and of all nationalities, was working to
unite all Christian Churches under the Pope, reforming Catholicism
in certain particulars which were really too absurd, a