but to his own consciousness done with it, and watching the present actors as he watched the sunsets; two of them full of undeveloped prospects beginning the world which was so familiar and yet so unknown; the last of all making his way steadily with few delays into a world still more unknown--a world which they all by times turned to investigate, with speculations, with questions, with enthusiastic anticipation, with profound, child-like faith. Such was their life up among the breezes, on the soft slopes of the Alban hills; and in the midst of everything more serious, of opening life and approaching death, Lauderdale and Alice sat down together weekly to reckon up their expenses in Italian and English money, and keep their accounts straight, as the little housewife termed it, with the world. During this wintry weather, however, the occupations of the party were not altogether limited to these weekly accounts. Meredith, though a little startled by the surprise shown by his companions at the too ingenious device of the map--which, after all, was not his device, but that of some Tract Society, or other body more zealous than scrupulous--had not ceased his warnings, in season and out of season. He talked to Maria about dying in a way which inspired that simple woman to the unusual exertion of a pilgrimage to Vicovaro, where the kind Madonna had just been proved upon ample testimony to have moved her eyes, to the great comfort and edification of the faithful. “No doubt it would be much better to be walking about all day among the blessed saints in heaven, as the Signor Arturo gives himself the trouble of telling me,” Maria said, with some anxiety in her face, “but _vedi, cara Signorina mia_, it would be very inconvenient at the beginning of the season;” and, indeed, the same opinion was commonly expressed by Arthur’s Italian auditors, who had, for the most part, affairs on hand which did not admit of immediate attention to such a topic. Even the good-natured friars at Capo Croce declined to tackle the young Englishman after the first accost; for they were all of opinion that dying was a business to be got over in the most expeditious manner possible, not to be dwelt on either by unnecessary anxiousness before or lingering regret after; and, as for the inevitable event itself, there were the last sacraments to make all right--though, indeed, the English invalid, _povero infelice_, might well make a fuss about a matter which must be so hopeless to him. This was all the fruit he had of his labours, there being at that time no enterprising priest at hand to put a stop to the discussions of the heretic. But, at the same time, he had Colin and Lauderdale close by, and was using every means in his power to “do them good,” as he said; and still, in the quiet nights, when the cold and the silence had taken entire possession of the great, vacant house and the half-frozen village, poor Meredith, dragged his chair and his table closet to the