effect of a new hat. It
was a very stunning hat--if a man's opinion hath any pertinence; it was
beyond doubt very complicated. There was an upward-springing black brim;
there was a downward-sweeping black feather; there was a defiant white
aigrette not unlike the Shah of Persia's; there were glints of red.

The priest sat in an arm-chair--one of those stiff, upright Roman
arm-chairs, which no one would ever dream of calling easy-chairs,
high-backed, covered with hard leather, studded with steel nails--and
watched her, smiling amusement, indulgence.

He was an oldish priest--sixty, sixty-five. He was small, lightly built,
lean-faced, with delicate-strong features: a prominent, delicate nose; a
well-marked, delicate jaw-bone, ending in a prominent, delicate chin;
a large, humorous mouth, the full lips delicately chiselled; a high,
delicate, perhaps rather narrow brow, rising above humorous grey eyes,
rather deep-set. Then he had silky-soft smooth white hair, and, topping
the occiput, a tonsure that might have passed for a natural bald spot.

He was decidedly clever-looking; he was aristocratic-looking,
distinguished-looking; but he was, above all, pleasant-looking,
kindly-looking, sweet-looking.

He wore a plain black cassock, by no means in its first youth--brown
along the seams, and, at the salient angles, at the shoulders, at
the elbows, shining with the lustre of hard service. Even without his
cassock, I imagine, you would have divined him for a clergyman--he
bore the clerical impress, that odd indefinable air of clericism which
everyone recognises, though it might not be altogether easy to tell
just where or from what it takes its origin. In the garb of an
Anglican--there being nothing, at first blush, necessarily Italian,
necessarily un-English, in his face--he would have struck you, I think,
as a pleasant, shrewd old parson of the scholarly--earnest type, mildly
donnish, with a fondness for gentle mirth. What, however, you would
scarcely have divined--unless you had chanced to notice, inconspicuous
in this sober light, the red sash round his waist, or the amethyst on
the third finger of his right hand--was his rank in the Roman hierarchy.
I have the honour of presenting his Eminence Egidio Maria Cardinal
Udeschini, formerly Bishop of Cittareggio, Prefect of the Congregation
of Archives and Inscriptions.

That was his title ecclesiastical. He had two other titles. He was a
Prince of the Udeschini by accident o