hen I am grown up perhaps I will build a convent of St. Cecilia in
America with my own money," continued the girl, meditatively.

Mademoiselle's eyes sparkled; she caressed the hand within her arm.

"Chere enfant! But I forget; it is not your faith."

"My faith? I always go to mass with you; I am not only devout, je suis
bigote," rejoined her pupil.

Then they entered the church. St. Cecilia's statue, wrought in purest
marble, lay revealed beneath the altar on this one day of the year,
when her crypt in the catacomb also blooms with flowers. Transfigured
by the radiance of silver lamps and myriads of tapers, enshrined in
garlands of roses, veiled in clouds of incense, the statue in its
niche lent a charm to the gaudy ornaments of the high altar, and all
the tinsel draperies extending from column to column along the aisle.
On the right a star of light was visible in the miraculous bath-room,
with its dim frescoes and ancient pillars; the nuns flitted behind the
lattice of their gallery.

Mademoiselle, a devout Catholic, knelt at different shrines. Her pupil
also knelt. The music, the chant, the glow of those gilded and crimson
draperies overhead, seen through the wreaths of incense, all blended.
She closed her eyes. She also must pray. For what boon? She smiled
suddenly as she murmured:

"O God, please send my papa to Rome for Christmas-day."

Then she rose to her feet, threaded her way among the ranks of
kneeling students, and mademoiselle found her in the court thrusting
money into the hands of a group of little boys, the true Trasteverini,
with large, liquid eyes.

"We shall be late, I fear," admonished the governess, as they finally
quitted the church.

The young girl, Cecilia Denvil, had insisted on walking to this
particular sanctuary in the Trastevere quarter instead of on the
Pincian Hill. She was both winning and perverse.

At an angle of the crooked streets the window of a shop attracted her
attention. Instantly the shrine of St. Cecilia, with its flowers and
silver lamps, vanished from her mind. The shop was a mere niche in an
old palace wall, brimming over, as it were, into the street, with such
odds and ends as a bit of tapestry, a dark picture, a heap of ancient
books, a tray of coins and medals, an idol fashioned by Chinese skill.

"What is it?" cried Cecilia.

"Only an image," replied mademoiselle.

The object of Cecilia's interest was a figure on a bracket in the shop
window. She darted i