hours from the time she had left home, old Orsola had nothing for it
but to wait for tidings of her as patiently as she could.



CHAPTER VI

Gigia's Opinion


The aged monk of St. Apollinare, after watching Paolina as she
departed from the Basilica, and took the path towards the forest,
returned into the church to his devotions at the altar of the saint,
as has been said. But he found himself unable to concentrate his
attention as usual, not on the meaning of the words of the litanies
he uttered,--that, it may be imagined, few such worshippers do, or
even attempt to do,--but on such devotional thoughts as, on other
occasions, constituted his mental attitude during the hours he spent
before the altar.

He could not prevent his mind from straying to thoughts of the girl
who had just left him; of certain long-sleeping recollections of his
own past, which her name had recalled to him; of her very manifest
emotion at the sight of the couple in the bagarino, and the too easy
interpretation of the meaning of that emotion; and specially of her
implied intention of taking the same route that they had taken.

He thought of these things, and a certain sense of uneasiness and
misgiving came over him. The young artist had spoken kindly and
sweetly to him. She had seemed to him wonderfully pretty,--and that