But he and his companions had not over-much time for observing. They
were traveling pretty swiftly. From Dillingen to Rome is a matter of
about eight hundred miles. They left Dillingen September 20th; they
reached Rome October 25th. That figures out to an average of about
twenty-two miles each day. Then, if you remember that they had to
climb mountains the first part of the way, that there were delays
entering towns, delays of devotion when they came to great churches,
you can see that many a day they must have equaled or surpassed
Stanislaus' thirty miles a day from Vienna.

But it was pleasanter. for Stanislaus than his first great tramp.
Now he had two good companions, with whom he could speak easily and
familiarly of the things nearest his heart. He had none of the
uncertainty about the result of this journey which he had had about
his former journey. He found shelter and friendship in many Jesuit
houses on the way.

As the three went on they lightened the road with pious songs, they
heard Mass and received Holy Communion whenever occasion offered,
they knelt by many a wayside shrine, a crucifix, or statue of our
Lady, scattered everywhere through Catholic Italy.

It did not take the two Jesuits long to appreciate Stanislaus and
delight in his company. He was so light-hearted, so merry in all
the discomforts and hardships of the long road, so thoroughly and
simply good. They wondered at his physical endurance, at the ease
and buoyancy with which the lad of seventeen kept up that hard
march, day after day.

The grasses of the Campagna were brown and brittle, the trees sere