this jewel for her
offering. Her heart held inexhaustible treasures, of which no man as yet
could claim any share. She ceased to fear him against whom she had
hitherto felt obliged to be on her guard; so much strength had she
gained from the sacred relics that she now thought herself strong enough
to make conquests of her own.

In the morning Manasseh came early to escort the ladies and Gabriel
Zimandy to the Sistine Chapel. Upon gaining the Piazza di San Pietro
they found a vast throng already assembled, through which the young man
was forced to pilot his charges. Blanka was compelled to cling fast to
his arm, while Madam Dormandy took the advocate's, and so they made the
best of their way forward. As if by instinct, Manasseh knew where a
courteous request would open a path before them, where to resort to more
energetic measures, and where a couple of _lire_ would prove most
effectual. At length he was successful in gaining the very best
position in the chapel, and here, unfolding a camp-stool which he had
brought with him under his overcoat, he offered Blanka a seat, whence
she could view the ceremonies in comfort, and without annoyance from the
pushing and crowding multitude.

Alas, poor Blanka! She only learned later from her father confessor what
a sin she had committed in thus yielding to the weakness of the flesh,
instead of standing through all the weary hours of that morning. A good
Christian should not think of bodily comfort while his Saviour hangs
bleeding on the cross. But she did not know this at the time, and
therefore her escort's kind attention was most grateful to her.

The Tenebrae is one of the most impressive of all the ceremonies of Holy
Week in Rome. The Sistine Chapel is draped entirely in black, and only
the soft rays of thirteen wax candles serve to lessen the darkness, out
of whose depths, as out of the blackness of the tomb, sounds the
antiphony of mourning and lamentation. The human forms moving to and fro
before the cross are hardly distinguishable, but have the appearance of
vague shadows. Then the candles are, one by one, extinguished, until
only a single taper is left burning on the altar--that is Jesus. And in
this darkness, symbolic of grief and mourning, an invisible choir sings
the _Miserere_, Allegri's world-renowned composition, whose mystic
notes bring so vividly before us that last scene on Golgotha,--the agony
of the dying Saviour, the taunts of the lictors, the wailing of th