For once, at San Marcuolo--true as true, faith of the Madonna!--one of
those priests told the people one day in his sermon that there were no
ghosts!"

The boy crossed himself and drew a quick breath, which increased the
interest of his auditors.

"_Ebbene_!" he continued, in an impressive, awestruck whisper. "He had
to come out of his bed at night--Santissima Maria!--and it was the
ghosts of all the people buried in San Marcuolo who dragged him and
kicked him to teach him better, because he wanted to make believe the
dead stayed in their graves! So where was the use of his Latin?"

"Pierino will be like his uncle, the Abbé Morelli, some day; they say he
also will be a priest."

"I believe thee," said Beppo, earnestly; "and that was he going in
behind the banner, with the Servi."

The little fellows made an instant rush for the door, and squeezed
themselves in behind the poor old women of the neighborhood for whom
festivals were perquisites, and who, maimed or deformed, knelt on the
stone floor close to the entrance, while with keenly observant,
ubiquitous eyes they proffered their _aves_ and their petitions for alms
with the same exemplary patience and fervor--"Per l'amor di Dio,
Signori!"

The body of the church, from the door to the great white marble screen
of the choir and from column to column, was filled with an assembly in
which the brilliant and scholarly elements predominated; and seen