Even the followers of Orazio forgot for a moment their discipline, and crowded around this charming daughter of Albion, gazing at her with looks of undisguised admiration. Woman as she was, Julia could not but feel a thrill of pride and pleasure at the homage of these bold and honest children of Italy. CHAPTER XLIV. THE OLD OAK After receiving the more formal salutations of Attilio and Orazio, Julia did not forget to turn for a little towards her lover, who had remained during all these demonstrations somewhat eclipsed and confused. Muzio, even when a child of the streets, had always maintained that decorum of person and propriety of manner which the remembrance of his noble birth imposed upon him; and now Julia had reason indeed to admire the change wrought in him by his life in the forest. The position of the last scion of the house of Pompeo had truly improved of late. Scipio, the faithful and devoted servant who had voluntarily taken charge of him when a baby, and tended him with such devoted affection, was dead; but before dying, he imparted, by writing, to Cardinal S------, Muzio s maternal uncle, the history of his young master's life, and a statement of his family property. The prelate gave his solicitor orders to put himself in communication with Muzio, to supply him with all he needed, and to endeavor to bring him back into the sheepfold of respectability. The prelate, moreover, had kindly intentions towards his nephew on his own part, and meditated adding something from his own possessions to the paternal estates which had passed so fraudulently into the hands of Paolotti's vultures, and which he saw the way to recover. This sudden change of fortune happened to Muzio about the end of the year 1866, in which the Italians, in spite of the undesirable means used, gained re-possession of their own soil, and got rid of the foreign friends of the priesthood. It was, therefore, not an untimely thing for Cardinal S------ to be able to say, "I have a nephew who is a Liberal, and one of the first temper, too." It was become of consequence, even to a prelate, to be on friendly terms with such a nephew. Julia contemplated the transformation of Muzio's appearance and apparel with natural pleasure, yet she had loved him so much as a wanderer of the city, that she almost wished him back again in the poor but graceful cloak of a Trastevere model. Muzio made no audible reply to his lady's gentle words of recognition, but kissed her hand with a devotion that needed no speeches to mark its intensity, and which could not be better translated than by his enamored mistress's heart.