"Indeed I have," I answered, and I gave her such a glowing account of the way the Red Cross Knights, the White Cross Knights, and the Black Cross Knights clanked through the streets of Genoa, before setting sail to battle for the Great Cross, that the cheeks of the old lady flushed and her eyes sparkled with enthusiastic emotion. "I don't wonder it kindles your soul to write about such things," she said. XVI. I RUN UPON A SANDBAR. Day by day, the interest of my nun in her work appeared to increase. Every morning, so soon as she sat down at her table, she read to me the concluding portion of what had been written the day before; and if a Sunday intervened, she gave me a page or more. Her interest was manifested in various ways. Several times she so far forgot the instructions she must have received as to turn her face towards me, when asking me to repeat something that she did not catch, and on such occasions I could not for some moments remember what I had said, or indeed what I was about to say. Once she stopped writing, and, turning half round in her chair, looked fairly at me, and said that she thought I had made a mistake in saying that visitors were not allowed to go up the Tower of Pisa without a guide; for she, with two other ladies, had gone to the top without any one accompanying them. But she thought it was very wrong to allow people to do this, and that I should be doing a service to travelers if I were to say something on the subject. Of course I replied that I would make the correction, and that I would say something about the carelessness to which she referred. Then there ensued a pause, during which she turned her face towards the window, imagining, I have no doubt, that I was busy endeavoring to compose something suitable to say upon the subject; but I was not thinking of anything of the sort. I was allowing my mind to revel in the delight which I had had in looking at her while she spoke. When her pen began to scratch impatiently upon the paper, I plunged into some sort of a homily on the laxity of vigilance in leaning towers. But, even while dictating this, I was wondering what she would look like if, instead of that gray shawl and gown, she were arrayed in one of the charming costumes which often make even ordinary young ladies so attractive.