order that she might understand that he would be up and
about again within a fortnight. On perceiving Pierre, La Pierina had
started with timidity and distrust as if anxious to flee; but when she
understood him, tears of happiness gushed from her eyes, and with a
bright smile she kissed her hand to him, calling: "_Grazie, grazie_,
thanks, thanks!" And thereupon she darted away, and he never saw her
again.

On another morning at an early hour, as Pierre was going to say mass at
Santa Brigida on the Piazza Farnese, he was surprised to meet Benedetta
coming out of the church and carrying a small phial of oil. She evinced
no embarrassment, but frankly told him that every two or three days she
went thither to obtain from the beadle a few drops of the oil used for
the lamp that burnt before an antique wooden statue of the Madonna, in
which she had perfect confidence. She even confessed that she had never
had confidence in any other Madonna, having never obtained anything from
any other, though she had prayed to several of high repute, Madonnas of
marble and even of silver. And so her heart was full of ardent devotion
for the holy image which refused her nothing. And she declared in all
simplicity, as though the matter were quite natural and above discussion,
that the few drops of oil which she applied, morning and evening, to
Dario's wound, were alone working his cure, so speedy a cure as to be
quite miraculous. Pierre, fairly aghast, distressed indeed to find such
childish, superstitious notions in one so full of sense and grace and
passion, did not even venture to smile.

In the evenings, when he came back from his strolls and spent an hour or
so in Dario's room, he would for a time divert the patient by relating
what he had done and seen and thought of during the day. And when he
again ventured to stray beyond the district, and became enamoured of the
lovely gardens of Rome, which he visited as soon as they opened in the
morning in order that he might be virtually alone, he delighted the young
prince and Benedetta with his enthusiasm, his rapturous passion for the
splendid trees, the plashing water, and the spreading terraces whence the
views were so sublime. It was not the most extensive of these gardens
which the more deeply impressed his heart. In the grounds of the Villa
Borghese, the little Roman Bois de Boulogne, there were certainly some
majestic clumps of greenery, some regal avenues where carriages took a
turn in