Armed with this tract, she tramped through the Lucchese mountains, leaving copies everywhere, and thrusting her volume into the hands of all who would have it. I 'm no great admirer of this practice in any sect. The world has too many indiscreet people to make this kind of procedure an over-safe one; besides, I 'm not quite certain that even a faulty religion is not preferable to having none at all, and it happens not unfrequently that the convert stops half-way on his road, and leaves one faith without ever reaching the other. I 'll not discuss this matter further; I have trouble enough on my hands without it. These little tracts of Mrs. D.'s attracted the attention of the authorities. It was quite enough that they had been given away gratis, and by an Englishwoman, to stamp them as attempts to proselytize, and, although they could n't explain how, yet they readily adopted the idea that the whole was written in a figurative style purposely to cover its real object, and so they set lawyers and judges to work, and what between oaths of peasants and affirmations of prefects, they soon made a very pretty case, and yesterday morning, just as we had finished breakfast, a sergeant of the gendarmerie entered the room, and with a military salute asked which was la Signora Dodd? The answer being given, he proceeded to read aloud a paper, that he held in his hand, the contents of which Cary translated for me in a whisper. They were, in fact, a judge's warrant to commit Mrs. D. to prison under no less than nine different sections of a new law on the subject of religion. In vain we assured him that we were all good Catholics, kept every ordinance of the Church, and hated a heretic. He politely bowed to our explanation, but said that with this part of the matter he had nothing to do; that doubtless we should be able to establish our innocence before the tribunal; meanwhile Mrs. D. must go to prison.