They listened, and found that his keen hearing had not deceived him. There was a sound of a little bell in the street, faint, but coming slowly nearer. What could it be? They looked out and saw nothing but the long, white street, stretching its ghostly length from hill to hill. The sound, however, was in the street, and at a spot where they looked and saw nothing, and it came constantly nearer. At length, when it was almost under their windows, they perceived a motion, slow and colorless, as if the paving-stones were noiselessly turning over and rolling off toward the Quirinal, and then the paving-stones became a tide of pale water tossing a black stick as it flowed; and, at last, it was sheep, and the stick was a man. The whole street was alive with their little bobbing heads and close pressed, woolly bodies. Soft and timid, they trotted past, as if afraid of waking the terrible lion of a city in whose sleeping jaws they found themselves. The dogs made no sound as they kept the stragglers in bounds, the men spoke not a word as they moved here and there among their flocks; there was only the small trotting of a multitude of little feet, and bell after bell on the leader of flock after flock. It seemed as if the world had turned to sheep. “I didn’t know there were so many in the world!” Isabel whispered. And still they came, stretching a mile, from beyond the Esquiline to beyond the Quirinal――an artery full of tender and innocent life flowing for an hour through the cruel, unconscious town. The Signora explained that the flocks were being taken from one pasture-ground to another, their shortest way being through the city. “I once saw a herd of cattle pass,” she said. “It was another thing, as you may imagine. Such a sense of the presence of fierce, strong life, and anger barely suppressed, I never experienced. It was their life that called my attention, as one feels lightning in the air. Then I heard their hoofs and the rattling of their horns, and then here they were! They were by no means afraid of Rome, but seemed, rather, impatient and angry that it should be here, drying up the pleasant hills where they would have liked to graze, reposing under the trees afterward, and looking dreamily off to the soft sea-line. How sleepy sheep make one!” The soft procession passed at length, and the family bade each other good-night. The next morning Isabel resolved not to be outdone by the other two ladies, and accordingly, when she heard the door shut softly after them as they went out to early Mass, she made haste to dress and follow. They, meanwhile, walked slowly on, unconscious of her intention, which would scarcely have given them the pleasure she imagined; for they were bound on an errand which would have rendered her society particularly uncongenial.