I look long upon the blazing bier, trailing under the deep shadows of the Roman palaces, and at the stream of torches, winding like a glittering, scaled serpent. It is a priest—say I to my landlady as she closes the window. “No, signor—a young man never married, and so, by virtue of his condition, they put on him the priest-robes.” “So I,” says the pretty Enrica—“if I should die, would be robed in white, as you saw me on a carnival night, and be followed by nuns for sisters.” “A long way off may it be, Enrica.” She took my hand in hers and pressed it. An Italian girl does not fear to talk of death, and we were talking of it still as we walked back to my little parlor—my hand all the time in hers—and sat down by the blaze of my fire. It was holy week; never had Enrica looked more sweetly than in that black dress—under that long, dark veil of the days of Lent. Upon the broad pavement of St. Peter’s—where the people, flocking by thousands, made only side groups about the altars of the vast temple—I have watched her kneeling beside her mother, her eyes bent down, her lips moving earnestly, and her whole figure tremulous with deep emotion. Wandering around among the halberdiers of the pope, and the court coats of Austria, and the barefooted pilgrims with sandal, shell and staff, I would sidle back again to look upon that kneeling figure, and, leaning against the huge columns of the church, would dream—even as I am dreaming now. At nightfall I urged my way into the Sistine Chapel; Enrica is beside me—looking with me upon the gaunt figures of the Judgment of Angelo. They are chanting the _Miserere_. The twelve candlesticks by the altar are put out one by one as the service continues. The sun has gone down, and only the red glow of twilight steals through the dusky windows. There is a pause, and a brief reading from a red-cloaked cardinal, and all kneel down. _She_ kneels beside me, and the sweet, mournful flow of the _Miserere_ begins again, growing in force and depth, till the whole chapel rings and the balcony of the choir trembles; then it subsides again into the low, soft wail of a single voice, so prolonged, so tremulous and so real that the heart aches and the tears start—for Christ is dead! —Lingering yet, the wail dies not wholly, but just as it seemed expiring it is caught up by another and stronger voice that carries it on, plaintive as ever; nor does it stop with this, for just as you looked for silence three voices more begin the lament—sweet, touching, mournful voices—and bear it up to a full cry, when the whole choir catch its burden and make the lament change into the wailing of a multitude—wild, shrill, hoarse—with swift chants intervening, as if agony had given force to anguish. Then, sweetly, slowly, voice by voice, note by note, the wailings sink into the low, tender moan of a single singer—faltering, tremulous, as if tears checked the utterance, and swelling out, as if despair sustained it.