“Quì si và a piedi, ‘cellenza!” said Maria, climbing down from her seat. The little carriage could go no further, and I returned suddenly to earth and meekly followed her example. The sound of voices and footsteps began to fill the air, and we came on shadowy groups resting by the wayside, pilgrims who had come from far on foot. Then at a sudden turn we were in the piazza, and all outer things, sky and stars and peaks, were swallowed up in blackness, for the piazza was one blaze of orange light, from hundreds of torches, burning luridly and outlining the dark façade of the Church with red-gold gleams that rose and sank like dancing waters; turning a face here, a costume there, to unearthly brightness and then leaping away in tall tongues of fire, to be lost in the mist of smoke overhead. The crowd was so thick that we could scarcely reach the Church, from the open doors of which a flood of broad yellow radiance streamed out over the heads of the pilgrims who knelt in serried ranks on the portico, all faces turned to the interior, whence streamed that soft illumination. When we stood on the threshold I saw that it came from the High Altar, which seemed to be floating in a vast “mandorla” of light. Hundreds and hundreds of wax candles, each a tongue of steady golden flame, surrounded the Tabernacle and reached, in an oval of fire, almost to the roof. The walls of the Church were covered with white draperies, to which were fastened wreaths and garlands and single sprays of flowers, a delicate ornamentation as old as ancient Rome and always used in the Penisola; and every pilaster was panelled from top to bottom with crimson damask trimmed with gold—those precious strips of drapery which the well-to-do families hoard from generation to generation and lend to the different Churches as required. From door to Altar rails the Church was packed with kneeling worshippers, and a great hush prevailed, for midnight had struck and Mass was about to begin. My companion, threading her way with coaxing apologies, pulled me along till she found a place where we could both kneel by a pillar at the top of the Church, and just as we had settled ourselves a sweet-voiced old organ, high up in an invisible gallery, sent out the first notes of the chant, filling the little ancient building with a flood of music—not the usual gay tunes that Italians love to hear in Church, but solemn thrilling airs from some old Mass that I had never heard before. The singers had been brought from far, and the voices were of the best, which is saying a great deal in South Italy, where everybody is born with “a harp in his throat.” Somehow it was one of the most beautiful services I ever attended. The absorbed devotion of the people, the reverent manner of the Celebrant and his assistants, the full-throated responses that were taken up by the kneeling crowd outside, where every sound was hushed the moment Mass began—it was the very essence of whole-hearted, loving worship.