"There's Priest Elias," thought Giacobbe, turning his little squint-eyes, which shone like metal in the bright light, towards the altar. "Yes, with his hands folded together, a boiled-milk priest, who can't preach anything except goodness and forgiveness, and all the time he has the Holy Books, and could strike right and left among the people if he chose to. Ah, if he had only threatened Giovanna Era----! He always looks as if he were in a dream, anyhow." "No one," continued the little preacher, standing erect in the yellow pulpit, "no one has ever been able to say that he failed to get anything he asked in true faith from Our Most Holy Lady. She, the Lily of the Valley, the Mystical Rose of Jericho----" But the audience was growing weary. The women, seated on the floor like beds of ranunculuses and poppies, were beginning to stir uneasily, and had ceased to listen. The young priest understood, and brought his discourse to a close, with a general benediction, which included the entire gathering of persons who, while ostensibly listening to the word of God, were, for the most part, wholly taken up with their own and their neighbours' affairs. Priest Elias, arousing from his dream, resumed the celebration of the Mass. He alone, with possibly Isidoro Pane, had listened to the sermon, and the latter, so soon as the Mass was concluded, began to sing the lauds, his clear, sweet voice flowing out like a stream of limpid water rippling among rocks and flowering moss. The young stranger listened with ecstasy to those liquid tones; the old fisherman's venerable figure, his long, flowing beard, and gentle eyes, and the bone rosary clasped between his knotted fingers, recalling certain pilgrims he had seen in Rome. He wanted to meet the old man, and Priest Elias, accordingly, stopped him at the church door. Giacobbe, who was watching, was almost consumed with envy at the sight of the fisherman standing in friendly conversation with the two priests. "What the thunder were they saying to you?" he demanded as the other came up. "They wanted me to dine with them," said Isidoro, with some show of importance. "Oh! they wanted you to dine with them, did they? So, my little spring bird, you are getting to be somebody, it seems. Well, you come along with me." "To the Dejases'? Not I!" exclaimed Isidoro in a tone of horror. "No, no; I'm not going to eat with those children of the devil to-day. I'm going home, so come along."