Zita went to church, heard high mass, confessed, and then, going into a little dark chapel by herself, fell down on her knees before the mother of all virgins, the Queen of Heaven. She prayed, and prayed, and prayed so long, so earnestly, so devoutly, that she quite forgot how swiftly the hours fleet by, how impossible it is to overtake them. She prayed and prayed till she lost all consciousness and memory of earthly things, of earthly ties and duties, till the vaulted roof seemed to open, till she seemed to see, through a golden network, a sky of lapis-lazuli all peopled with angelic beings in robes of dazzling white; till she heard soft sounds of music such as could only proceed from harps played by celestial hands; till the statue of the Queen of Heaven seemed to smile upon her and bless her; till she was no longer a cook and a slave, but an ecstatic in communion with the saints. She prayed till the mortal sky without, from the glare of noonday took soberer hues; till the western horizon began to blush for Zita’s tardiness; till the great blue Mediterranean sea grew purple, save where the sunset smote it; till the white palaces of Genoa were tinged with pink, as if the sky had rained roses. She prayed till the lazy dogs which had been basking in the sun rose and shook themselves and raised their shiftless eyes as if to wonder where the sun was; till the barbarian soldiers, who had been lounging on guard-house benches, staggered inside, and fell to dicing and drinking; till hired assassins woke up on their straw pallets, and, rubbing their villanous eyes, began to think that it was pretty nearly time to go a murdering; till cut-purses’ fingers began to itch premonitorily; till maidens watched the early moon, and longed for it to be sole sovereign of the heavens, that the trysting-time might come; till the young spendthrift rejoiced that another day was to come, and the old sage sighed that another day was gone; till sick men quarrelled with their nurses for closing their casements, and the birds grew drowsy, and the flowers shut themselves up in secresy, and the frog began to speak to his neighbour, and the glow-worm lighted his lamp. She prayed till it was dusk, and almost dark, till the vesper bell began to ring, when she awoke from out her trance, and not a dish of the dinner was cooked.