egends of the saints to which they
are dedicated. A thin, smooth-shaven lay brother in black and white
frock was slowly sweeping the choir behind the high altar. There was no
one else in the church.

Cecilia was kneeling on the marble floor, resting her folded hands upon
the back of a rough chair, and there was no sound in the dim building,
but the regular, soft brushing of the monk's broom. The girl's face was
still and pale, her eyes were half closed, and her lips did not move;
she did not hear the broom.

That was the first time she had ever tried to spend an hour in
meditation in a church, for her religion had never seemed very real to
her. It was compounded of habit and the natural respect of a girl for
what her mother practises and has taught her to practise, and it had
continued to hold a place in her life because she had quietly exempted
it from her own criticism; perhaps, too, because her reading had not
really tended to disturb it, since by nature she was strongly inclined
to believe in something much higher than the visible world.

The Countess Fortiguerra believed with the simplicity of a child. Her
first husband, freethinker, Garibaldian, Mazzinian, had at first tried
to laugh her out of all belief, and had said that he would baptize her
in the name of reason, as Garibaldi is said to have once baptized a
new-born infant. But to his surprise his jests had not the slightest
effect on the rather foolish, very pretty, perfectly frank young woman
with whom he had fallen in love in his older years, and who, in all
other matters, thought him a great man. She laughed at his atheism much
more good-naturedly than he at her beliefs, and she went to church
regularly in spite of anything he could say; so that at last he shrugged
his shoulders and said in his heart that all women were half-witted
creatures, where priests were concerned, but that fortunately the
weakness did not detract from their charm. On her side, she prayed for
his conversion every day, with clock-like regularity, but without the
slightest result.

Fortiguerra had been a man of remarkable gifts, extremely tolerant of
other people's opinions. He never laughed at any sort of belief, though
his wife never succeeded in finding out what he really thought about
spiritual matters. He evidently believed in something, so she did not
pray for his conversion, but interceded steadily for his enlightenment.
Before he died he made no objection to seeing a pries