Sometimes Evelyn and her husband and boys came out to stay with Henrietta. The visits were not occasions of much happiness, and a certain day remained for years as a mild nightmare in Evelyn's memory. They were all in Milan one spring, when the patron of the hotel announced that his lady cousin, who lived at some out-of-the-way little country town, had heard from her friend, a priest in that same little town, that on Tuesday there was to be a special festa in connection with a local saint. Would the English ladies and gentlemen care to go? The patron himself had the contempt of an enlightened man for saints and festas, but he knew the curious attraction which such childishness possesses for the English tourist. All was arranged. The railway company had never intended that the little town should be reached from Milan, but with an early start and much changing of trains it was possible to accomplish the journey in two hours and a half. They arrived. There was no surprise among the hotel omnibuses at their appearance, for the Italians have found that the English will turn up everywhere; but to-day they were certainly the only representatives of their nation. They reached the church where the festa was to take place. It was sleeping peacefully, brooded over by a delicious, sweet smell of dirt and stale incense. Not a soul was to be seen. But as the party marched indignantly up and down the aisles, another smell comes to join the incense--garlic. A merry, good-humoured little priest appears; it is the friend of the lady cousin. He knew no English but "Yis, Yis"; they little Italian but the essentials for travel: "Troppo, bello, antiquo." At the word "festa" he shook his head very sadly, and he said "Domani" so many times that, with the help of Henrietta's little phrase-book, they found it must mean "To-morrow." They had come the wrong day. He was very much distressed about it. To make up, if possible, for the disappointment, he showed them all over the church and sacristy; he did not miss one memorial tablet, not one disappearing fresco, and knowing the taste of the English, he said, as each new item was displayed: "Molto, _molto_ antiquo." He was so much attracted by Evelyn's charming middle-aged beauty and her sweet English voice that when Santa Barbara's was exhausted, he could not resist showing them, what he cared for much more, his own little brand-new mission church, with its brilliant rosy-cheeked images and artificial wreaths. The boys, fifteen and seventeen, had had enough of churches after two days at Milan, and Evelyn could hear from Herbert's conscientious, stumping tread that he was examining the church because a soldier must always do his duty. At length it was over; they came out into the sunshine, and the big town clock struck a quarter to eleven. Their train home left at 5.30. The two churches had only used up an hour and a quarter.