eard from Viscount de la Choue," said she. "I had a
letter from him yesterday, in which he said how grieved he was that you
were unable to see the Holy Father, as he had counted on you for the
triumph of his ideas."

Pierre indeed frequently heard from the Viscount, who was greatly
distressed by the importance which his adversary, Baron de Fouras, had
acquired since his success with the International Pilgrimage of the
Peter's Pence. The old, uncompromising Catholic party would awaken, said
the Viscount, and all the conquests of Neo-Catholicism would be
threatened, if one could not obtain the Holy Father's formal adhesion to
the proposed system of free guilds, in order to overcome the demand for
closed guilds which was brought forward by the Conservatives. And the
Viscount overwhelmed Pierre with injunctions, and sent him all sorts of
complicated plans in his eagerness to see him received at the Vatican.
"Yes, yes," muttered the young priest in reply to Benedetta. "I had a
letter on Sunday, and found another waiting for me on my return from
Frascati yesterday. Ah! it would make me very happy to be able to send
the Viscount some good news." Then again Pierre's joy overflowed at the
thought that he would that evening see the Pope, and, on opening his
loving heart to the Pontiff, receive the supreme encouragement which
would strengthen him in his mission to work social salvation in the name
of the lowly and the poor. And he could not restrain himself any longer,
but let his secret escape him: "It's settled, you know," said he. "My
audience is for this evening."

Benedetta did not understand at first. "What audience?" she asked.

"Oh! Monsignor Nani was good enough to tell me at the ball this morning,
that the Holy Father has read my book and desires to see me. I shall be
received this evening at nine o'clock."

At this the Contessina flushed with pleasure, participating in the
delight of the young priest to whom she had grown much attached. And this
success of his, coming in the midst of her own felicity, acquired
extraordinary importance in her eyes as if it were an augury of complete
success for one and all. Superstitious as she was, she raised a cry of
rapture and excitement: "Ah! _Dio_, that will bring us good luck. How
happy I am, my friend, to see happiness coming to you at the same time as
to me! You cannot think how pleased I am! And all will go well now, it's
certain, for a house where there is any one whom the