The music ceased; the prayers were ended. Mae heard indistinctly the sweep of trailing skirts, the sound of footsteps on the marble floor, the noise of voices as the people went away, but still she did not move. The selah pause had come after the psalm. When she did rise, and turn, and start to go, her eyes fell on the kneeling form. She tried to pass quickly without recognition, but he reached out his hand. “This is a church,” said Mae; “my prayers are sacred; do not disturb me.” He held his rosary toward her, with the cross at the end tightly clasped in his hand. “My prayers are here, too,” he said. “Oh, Signorina, give me one little prayer, one of your little prayers.” He knelt before her in the quiet, dim, half light, his hands clasped, and an intense earnestness in his easily moved Italian soul, that floated up to his face. It looked like beautiful penitence and faith to Mae. Here was a soul in sympathy with hers, one which met her harmoniously in every mood, slid into her dreams and wild wishes, sparkled with her enjoyment, and now knelt as she knelt, and asked for one of her prayers. She stood a minute irresolute. Then she smiled down on him a full, rich smile, and said in English: “God bless you,” The next moment she was gone. Bero made no movement to follow her, but remained quietly on his knees, his head bowed low. * * * * * “I looked in at St. Andrea’s, at vespers,” said that dear, bungling fellow, Eric, at dinner that night, “and saw you Mae, but you were so busy with your prayers I came away.” There was a pause, and Mae knew that people looked at her. “Yes, I was there; the music was wonderful.” “Mae,” asked Mrs. Jerrold, “Do you have to go to a Roman Catholic Church to say your prayers?” For Mrs. Jerrold was a Puritan of the Puritans, and had breathed in the shorter catechism and the doctrine of election with the mountain air and sea-salt of her childhood. Possibly the two former had had as much to do as the latter with her angularity and severe strength. “Indeed,” cried Mae, impulsively, “I wish I could always enter a church to say my prayers. There is so much to help one there.” “Is there any danger of your becoming a Romanist?” enquired Mrs. Jerrold, pushing the matter further. “I wish there were a chance of my becoming anything half as good, but I am afraid there isn’t. Still, I turn with an occasional loyal heart-beat to the great Mother Church, that the rest of you have all run away from.” “Yes, you have,” Mae shook her head decidedly at Edith. “She may be a cruel mother. I know you all think she’s like the old woman who lived in a shoe, and that she whips her children and sends them supperless to bed, and gives them a stone for bread, but she’s the mother of all of us, notwithstanding.”