met at her feet. Above
her head was a square canopy, over the edge of which delicate green
vines and tendrils waved, while in and out among them, tiny birds
fluttered and chirped.

[Illustration: "A court-yard embellished by an
exquisite old stone staircase"]

As Vittorio rested on his oar, Kenwick took pains to assure May that
there were no longer any lights burned before these Madonnas, and
Vittorio was called upon to account for the omission. While he eagerly
claimed that the Madonna at his ferry was never left without a light,
between sundown and sunrise;--_mai, mai!_--Pauline replied to a remark
that Geoffry had made an hour previous.

"The feeling one has about your mother," she said, "almost makes a
Catholic of one. You can see how natural it is for these poor fellows to
worship the Madonna, and how much better it must make them."

"It is humanizing," Geoffry admitted. "There's no doubt of it"; and
thereupon it struck him, for the first time, that there was a look of
his mother in Pauline Beverly's face. Perhaps that accounted for
something that had perplexed him of late.

[Illustration: "The Madonnas, under their iron canopies,
looked down, serene and beneficent"]

X

A Benediction

The thing that had perplexed Geoffry Daymond was nothing less
inexplicable than the persistency with which the face of Pauline Beverly
had come to insinuate itself into his thoughts. When in her society, to
be sure, he was not aware of regarding her with an exclusive interest.
Indeed it was, more particularly, May who amused and occupied him, as
often as Kenwick gave her the chance. The individuality of that
surprisingly pretty young person was so sharp-cut and incisive that it
fixed attention. It not infrequently happened that everybody present
desisted from conversation, merely for the pleasure of a placid
contemplation of her mental processes. These were simple, and to the
point, and usually played about visible objects. The vital matter with
May, in each and every experience, was to formulate a judgment and to
compare it with that of other people. If others differed from her, all
the better. Opposition is a sharpener of the wits; and she found Kenwick
invaluable in his character of universal sceptic.

No one but Uncle Dan ever really took her down, and that he did so
neatly, that she was never seriously disconcerted by it. Had it been
otherwise, Uncle Dan would have held his peace, for he prized the
exuberanc