"Do you think so?" rejoined the monk. "I have no idea. However little it may be, the convent must needs be satisfied with it." "Do you wish me to go and demand more for you, my brother? If you will promise to pray for me every day this week, I will make them give you more." "Oh! don't take that trouble," replied the dignified Capuchin, with a smile; "I will pray for you _gratis_, and my prayers will be worth all the more. Your mistress, Princess Agatha, gives enough in charity, and I come to her house only in obedience to my orders." "Uncle," said little Mila, in an undertone, "there is a brother of your order yonder, whose face puzzles my father and brother. They think that he looks like somebody else." "Somebody else? Whom do you mean?" "Look at him," said Pier-Angelo. "Michel is right, he has a bad face. You must know him. He is standing all alone, over there under the musicians' platform." "So far as his figure and his carriage are concerned, I don't recognize him as any brother of our convent. And yet he wears the frock of a Capuchin. But why does he interest you?" "Because it seems to us," said Pier, lowering his voice, "that he resembles Abbé Ninfo." "In that case, off with you," said Fra Angelo, hastily. "I will go and speak to him, and I will soon find out who he is and what he is here for." "Yes, yes, let us go," said Pier-Angelo. "Go first, children. I will follow you." Michel put his sister's arm through his, and they were soon on the way to Catania. "It seems that this Abbé Ninfo wishes us ill," said Mila to her brother, "and has the power to injure us. Do you know why, Michel?" "Not very well; but I am suspicious of a man who disguises himself, apparently for the purpose of spying. Whether we are concerned or somebody else, mystery conceals evil projects." "Psha!" said the heedless Mila, after a moment's silence, "perhaps he is only a monk, like the rest. He stood apart and lurked in corners, as some of them often do after the crowd has passed, on days of processions or feast-days, to see if they can't find some jewel that somebody has lost. Then they pick it up without a word and carry it to their convent, to be surrendered to its owner in consideration of a round sum for one or two masses, or to be used in unearthing some love secret; for these good fathers are very inquisitive, as a general rule!" "You don't love the monks, do you, Mila? You are only half a Sicilian?" "That depends. I love my uncle and those who are like him." "By the way," said Michel, reminded by the words _lost jewel_ of the adventure which the Capuchins had driven from his mind; "you had been in the ball-room, hadn't you, a moment before I met you in the garden?"