it would be a little the tallest
organization on this green globe of ours. Yes, _Sir!_"

While Hawbury and the Baron were thus engaged in high discourse, Mrs.
Willoughby and Minnie were engaged in discourses of a less elevated
but more engrossing character.

After the ladies had escaped they went up stairs. Lady Dalrymple had
retired some time before to her own room, and they had the apartment
to themselves. Minnie flung herself into a chair and looked
bewildered; Mrs. Willoughby took another chair opposite, and said
nothing for a long time.

"Well," said Minnie at last, "you needn't be so cross, Kitty; I didn't
bring him here."

"Cross!" said her sister; "I'm not cross."

"Well, you're showing temper, at any rate; and you know you are, and I
think it very unkind in you, when I have so much to trouble me."

"Why, really, Minnie darling, I don't know what to say."

"Well, why don't you tell me what you think of him, and all that sort
of thing? You _might_, you know."

"Think of him!" repeated Mrs. Willoughby, elevating her eyebrows.

"Yes, think of him; and you needn't go and make faces about him, at
any rate."

"Did I make faces? Well, dear," said Mrs. Willoughby, patiently, "I'll
tell you what I think of him. I'm afraid of him."

"Well, then," said Minnie, in a tone of triumph, "now you know how I
feel. Suppose he saved your life, and then came in his awfully
boisterous way to see you; and got you alone, and began that way, and
really quite overwhelmed you, you know; and then, when you were really
almost stunned, suppose he went and proposed to you? Now, then!"

And Minnie ended this question with the air of one who could not be
answered, and knew it.

"He's awful--perfectly awful!" said Mrs. Willoughby. "And the way he
treated you! It was _so_ shocking."

"I know; and that's just the horrid way he _always_ does," said
Minnie, in a plaintive tone. "I'm sure _I_ don't know what to do with
him. And then he's Lord Hawbury's friend. So what _are_ we to do?"

[Illustration: "LOOK AT THE MAN!"]

"I don't know, unless we leave Rome at once."

"But I don't _want_ to leave Rome," said Minnie. "I hate being chased
away from places by people--and they'd be sure to follow me, you
know--and I don't know what to do. And oh, Kitty darling, I've just
thought of something. It would be so nice. What do you think of it?"

"What is it?"

"Why, this. You know the Pope?"

"No, I don't."

"Oh, well, you've seen h