A nurse was standing among a group of people, talking in a loud voice. She was so affected that the tears streamed down her cheeks. She related how five years ago she had been ordered away, to serve at a leper hospital on an island at the other end of the globe. Naturally, she had to obey orders; but she did so against her wishes. She had felt a horrible dread of this mission. Before she left Rome, she was received by the Pope, who had given her a special blessing and had also promised her that if she came back alive she should have another audience with him. And it was upon this that she had lived during the five years she had been away--only on the hope that she might see the Holy Father once more in this life! This had helped her to go through all the horrors. And now, when she had got home at last, she was met by the news that he lay upon his death-bed! She could not even see him! She was in extreme despair, and old Concenza was deeply moved. "It would really be much too great a sorrow for every one if the Pope were to die," thought she, as she wandered farther up the street. When she observed that many of the passers-by looked perfectly exhausted from weeping, she thought with a sense of relief: "What a joy it would be to see everybody's happiness if the Pope should recover!" And she, like many others who have a buoyant disposition, was apparently no more afraid of dying than of living; so she said to herself: "If I only knew how it could be done, I would gladly give the Holy Father the years that are left to me of life." She said this somewhat in jest, but back of the words there was also seriousness. She truly wished that she might realize something in that way. "An old woman could not wish for a more beautiful death," thought she. "I would be helping both my son and my daughter, and, besides, I should make great masses of people happy." Just as this thought stirred within her, she raised the patched curtain which hung before the entrance of a gloomy little church. It was one of the very old churches--one of those which appear to be gradually sinking into the earth because the city's foundation has, in the intervening years, raised itself several metres all around them. This church in its interior had preserved somewhat of its ancient gloom, which must have come down through the dark ages during which it had sprung into existence. Involuntarily a shudder passed through one as one stepped in under its low arches, which rested upon uncommonly thick pillars, and saw the crudely painted saints' pictures that glimpsed down at one from walls and altars.