and lecther on what he
saw, an' he talked for two hours like an angel. But Anne Dillon can on'y
shut her eyes, an' dhrop her head whin ye ask her a single question
about it. Faith, I dinno if she'll ever get over it. Isn't that quare
now?"

"Very," Arthur answered, "but give her time. So you saw the Pope?"

"Faith, I did, an' it surprised me a gra'dale to find out that he was a
dago, God forgi' me for sayin' as much. I was tould be wan o' the
Mounsinnyory that he was pure Italian. 'No,' sez I, 'the Pope may be
Rooshin or German, though I don't belave he's aither, but he's not
Italian. If he wor, he'd have the blessed sinse to hide it, for fear the
Irish 'ud lave the Church whin they found it out.'"

"What blood do you think there's in him?" said Arthur.

"He looked so lovely sittin' there whin we wint in that me sivin sinses
left me, an' I cudn't rightly mek up me mind afterwards. Thin I was so
taken up wid Mrs. Dillon," and Judy laughed softly, "that I was
bothered. But I know the Pope's not a dago, anny more than he's a
naygur. I put him down in me own mind as a Roman, no more an' no less."

"That's a safe guess," said Arthur; "and you still have the choice of
his being a Sicilian, a Venetian, or a Neapolitan."

"Unless," said the old lady cautiously, "he comes of the same stock as
Our Lord Himself."

"Which would make him a Jew," Arthur smoothly remarked.

"God forgive ye, Artie! G'long wid ye! If Our Lord was a Jew he was the
first an' last an' on'y wan of his kind."

"And that's true too. And how did you come to see the Pope so easy, and
it in the summer time?"

The expressive grin covered Judy's face as with comic sunshine.

"I dunno," she answered. "If Anne Dillon made up her mind to be Impress
of France, I dunno annythin' nor anny wan that cud hould her back; an'
perhaps the on'y thing that kep' her from tryin' to be Impress was that
the Frinch had an Impress already. I know they had, because I heard her
ladyship lamentin', whin we wor in Paris, that she didn't get a letther
of introduction to the Impress from Lady Skibbereen. She had anny number
of letthers to the Pope. I suppose that's how we all got in, for I wint
too, an' the three of us looked like sisters of mercy, dhressed in black
wid veils on our heads. Whin we dhruv up to the palace, her ladyship gev
a screech. 'Mother of heaven,' says she, 'but I forgot me permit, an'
we can't get in to see his Holiness.' We sarched all her pockets, but
f