least bit and bridled. "He comes to see me--without reproach! But it
would not be the same for me to go to him, though, indeed, you may almost
call him a man of holy life."

"He has the greatest admiration for you," I said. "He would have been
honoured by your visit."

She looked at me a moment sharply. "More admiration than you. Admit
that!" Of course I protested with all the eloquence at my command, and
my mysterious hostess then confessed that she had taken no fancy to me on
my former visit, and that, Theobald not having returned, she believed I
had poisoned his mind against her. "It would be no kindness to the poor
gentleman, I can tell you that," she said. "He has come to see me every
evening for years. It's a long friendship! No one knows him as well as
I."

"I don't pretend to know him or to understand him," I said. "He's a
mystery! Nevertheless, he seems to me a little--" And I touched my
forehead and waved my hand in the air.

Serafina glanced at her companion a moment, as if for inspiration. He
contented himself with shrugging his shoulders as he filled his glass
again. The _padrona_ hereupon gave me a more softly insinuating smile
than would have seemed likely to bloom on so candid a brow. "It's for
that that I love him!" she said. "The world has so little kindness for
such persons. It laughs at them, and despises them, and cheats them. He
is too good for this wicked life! It's his fancy that he finds a little
Paradise up here in my poor apartment. If he thinks so, how can I help
it? He has a strange belief--really, I ought to be ashamed to tell
you--that I resemble the Blessed Virgin: Heaven forgive me! I let him