the lights were fewer, the stream of pilgrims having
ceased. Tessa clung fast to Tito's arm in satisfied silence, while he
led her towards the stall where he remembered seeing the eatables.
Their way was the easier because there was just now a great rush towards
the middle of the piazza, where the masqued figures on stilts had found
space to execute a dance. It was very pretty to see the guileless thing
giving her cocoons into Tito's hand, and then eating her berlingozzi
with the relish of a hungry child. Tito had really come to take care of
her, as he did before, and that wonderful happiness of being with him
had begun again for her. Her hunger was soon appeased, all the sooner
for the new stimulus of happiness that had roused her from her languor,
and, as they turned away from the stall, she said nothing about going
into the church again, but looked round as if the sights in the piazza
were not without attraction to her now she was safe under Tito's arm.

"How can they do that?" she exclaimed, looking up at the dancers on
stilts. Then, after a minute's silence, "Do you think Saint Christopher
helps them?"

"Perhaps. What do you think about it, Tessa?" said Tito, slipping his
right arm round her, and looking down at her fondly.

"Because Saint Christopher is so very tall; and he is very good: if
anybody looks at him he takes care of them all day. He is on the wall
of the church--too tall to stand up there--but I saw him walking through
the streets one San Giovanni, carrying the little Gesu."

"You pretty pigeon! Do you think anybody could help taking care of
_you_, if you looked at them?"

"Shall you always come and take care of me?" said Tessa, turning her
face up to him, as he crushed her cheek with his left-hand. "And shall
you always be a long while first?"

Tito was conscious that some bystanders were laughing at them, and
though the licence of street fun, among artists and young men of the
wealthier sort as well as among the populace, made few adventures
exceptional, still less disreputable, he chose to move away towards the
end of the piazza.

"Perhaps I shall come again to you very soon, Tessa," he answered,
rather dreamily, when they had moved away. He was thinking that when
all the rest had turned their backs upon him, it would be pleasant to
have this little creature adoring him and nestling against him. The
absence of presumptuous self-conceit in Tito made him feel all the more
defencele