“And you?” said Colin, who felt in his heart an inclination to kneel to her as if she had been a queen. “I shall stay at home to-day,” said Alice. “I could not go out to-day; but I shall do very well. Sora Antonia will come in from mass presently. Oh, go out, please, and take a walk. Mr. Lauderdale, he will go if you tell him to go--you are both looking so pale.” “Come, Colin,” said Lauderdale, “she shall have her pleasure done this day, at least, whatsoever she commands. If there was anything within my power or his--” said the philosopher, with a strange discord that sounded like tears in his voice; but Alice stopped him short. “Oh yes,” she said, softly, “it is very good of you to do it because I ask you. Mr. Campbell, you did not read the right lesson,” she added, turning her worn face to Colin with a slight reproach. “I read what I thought was better for us all, mourning as we are,” said Colin, startled; upon which the sad little representative of law and order did her best to smile. “I have always heard it said how wonderful it was how the lesson for the day always suited everybody’s case,” said Alice. “Arthur never would make any change for circumstances. He--he said it was as if God could ever be wanting,” the faithful sister said, through her sobs; and then, again, put force upon herself:--“I shall be here when you come back,” she said, with her faint smile; and so, like a little princess, sent them away. The two men went their way up the slope and through the little town, in their black coats, casting two tall, sombre shadows into the sunshine and gaiety of the bright piazza. There had been a procession that morning, and the rough pavement was strewed with sprigs of myrtle and box, and the air still retained a flavour of the candles, not quite obliterated by the whiff of incense which came from the open doors of the Cathedral, where even the heavy leathern curtain, generally suspended across the entrance, had been removed by reason of the crowd. People were kneeling even on the steps; peasants in their laced buskins, and Frascati women, made into countesses or duchesses, at the least, by the long white veils which streamed to their feet. The windows were all hung with brilliant draperies in honour of the morning’s procession and the afternoon’s Tombola. It was one of the very chief of Italian holydays, a festal Sunday in May, the month of Mary. No wonder the two sad Protestant Scotchmen, with mourning in their dress and in their hearts, felt themselves grow sick and faint as they went dutifully to the gardens of the Villa Conti, as they had been commanded. They did not so much as exchange a word with each other till they had passed through all that sunshine and reached the identical alley, a close arcade, overarched and shut in by the dense foliage of ilex-trees, to which their little sovereign had directed them. There was not a soul there as she had prophesied. A tunnel scooped out of the damp, dewy soil