ughts of Montanelli and Gemma got so
much in the way of this devotional exercise that at last he gave up the
attempt and allowed his fancy to drift away to the wonders and glories
of the coming insurrection, and to the part in it that he had allotted
to his two idols. The Padre was to be the leader, the apostle, the
prophet before whose sacred wrath the powers of darkness were to flee,
and at whose feet the young defenders of Liberty were to learn
afresh the old doctrines, the old truths in their new and unimagined
significance.

And Gemma? Oh, Gemma would fight at the barricades. She was made of the
clay from which heroines are moulded; she would be the perfect comrade,
the maiden undefiled and unafraid, of whom so many poets have dreamed.
She would stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder, rejoicing under the
winged death-storm; and they would die together, perhaps in the moment
of victory--without doubt there would be a victory. Of his love he would
tell her nothing; he would say no word that might disturb her peace or
spoil her tranquil sense of comradeship. She was to him a holy thing,
a spotless victim to be laid upon the altar as a burnt-offering for the
deliverance of the people; and who was he that he should enter into the
white sanctuary of a soul that knew no other love than God and Italy?

God and Italy----Then came a sudden drop from the clouds as he entered
the great, dreary house in the "Street of Palaces," and Julia's butler,
immaculate, calm, and politely disapproving as ever, confronted him upon
the stairs.

"Good-evening, Gibbons; are my brothers in?"

"Mr. Thomas is in, sir; and Mrs. Burton. They are in the drawing room."

Arthur went in with a dull sense of oppression. What a dismal house
it was! The flood of life seemed to roll past and leave it always just
above high-water mark. Nothing in it ever changed--neither the people,
nor the family portraits, nor the heavy furniture and ugly plate, nor
the vulgar ostentation of riches, nor the lifeless aspect of everything.
Even the flowers on the brass stands looked like painted metal flowers
that had never known the stirring of young sap within them in the warm
spring days. Julia, dressed for dinner, and waiting for visitors in the
drawing room which was to her the centre of existence, might have sat
for a fashion-plate just as she was, with her wooden smile and flaxen
ringlets, and the lap-dog on her knee.

"How do you do, Arthur?" she said stiffly