“Is it?” she asked. “Come to think of it, I believe you are right. It is always cramping for me to look down. I recollect that, when I was a child, if I dropped my eyes on being a little embarrassed, it was almost an impossibility for me to raise them again.” Going in past the kitchen, they found Adriano in chase of a cockroach that had dared to show itself there, and they stopped to learn the result, feeling that it interested them. It was not successful, and the man rose from his knees very much vexed. “These _bagarozzi_ don’t know what Ascension day is nowadays, or they would hide themselves,” he said. Mr. Vane asked what connection there was between _bagarozzi_ and Ascension day, and the servant-man, albeit a little ashamed of having committed himself to tell a story, explained: “When I was young, it was a custom among the Roman boys, on the vigil of the Ascension, to go down into our cellars, or those of our neighbors, and catch as many _bagarozzi_ as we could. When evening came, we fixed to the back of each one a bit of wax taper, melting the end to make it stick. Half an hour or so after _Ave Maria_ we marshalled our bugs, lighted the tapers on their backs, and sent them off in a procession. While they went we sang a song we had. It was a pretty sight to see the little tapers scampering off through the dark.” “Why! I should think it would have scorched them!” Bianca exclaimed with surprise. The man laughed at her simplicity. “Who knows?” he said, with a shrug. “They never came back to tell us.” Isabel inquired what the song was to which this novel procession marched. The man laughed again and repeated the doggerel: “'Corri, corri, bagarone; Che dimane è l’Ascensione; L’Ascension delle pagnotte: Corri, corri, bagarozzi.’” Which might be rendered: “Run, run, my noble roach; for to-morrow is Ascension day—Ascension day of the little loaves. Run, roach, run.” “What demons of cruelty children can be!” remarked Isabel as the family went on.