not be lodged there. The
magnificence is reserved for a Cardinal (Gregory XVI. who had been
a Camaldolese frequently came here), or a travelling Bishop and his
suite, or a heretic English or American milord! But not for any
daughter of Eve! And the makeshift room over a carpenter's shop, which
is called the _forestieria_, has been devoted to the purpose only in
consequence of the incomprehensible mania of female English heretics
for visiting the disciples of St. Romuald. And there the food supplied
from the convent can be brought to them. But for the night? I had
warned my friends that they would have to occupy different quarters;
and it now became necessary to introduce George Eliot to the place she
was to pass the night in.

At the distance of about twenty minutes' walk above the convent,
across a lovely but very steep extent of beautifully green turf,
encircled by the surrounding forest, there is a cow-house, with an
annexed lodging for the cowherd and his wife. And over the cow stable
is--or was, for the monks have been driven away and all is altered
now!--a bedchamber with three or four beds in it, which the
toleration of the community has provided for the accommodation of the
unaccountable female islanders. I have assisted in conveying parties
of ladies up that steep grassy slope by the light of a full moon,
when all the beds had to be somewhat more than fully occupied. But
fortunately George Eliot had the whole chamber to herself--perhaps,
however, not quite fortunately, for it was a very novel and not
altogether reassuring experience for her to be left absolutely alone
for the night, to the protection of an almost entirely unintelligible
cowherd and his wife! But there was no help for it! G.H. Lewes did not
seem to be quite easy about it; but George Eliot did not appear to be
troubled by the slightest alarm or misgiving. She seemed, indeed, to
enjoy all the novelty and strangeness of the situation; and when she
bade us good-night from the one little window of her chamber over the
cows, as we turned to walk down the slope to our grand bedrooms at the
convent, she said she should be sure to be ready when we came for her
in the morning, as the cows would call her, if the cowherds failed to
do so.

The following morning we were to ride up the mountain to the Sagro
Eremo. Convent hours are early, and soon after the dawn we
had convoyed our female companion down the hill to the little
_forestieria_ for breakfast,