lettered and dated in black ink, of gradually shaded degrees of
fadedness. The place looked like the archive-room of some public
establishment, which kept its archives in very unusually good order.

All these were the documents and pleadings in all the lawsuits and
other legal transactions of all the clients of the three generations
of the Fortini. And it would not have been too much to say, that
Signor Giovacchino Fortini would have deemed the destruction of this
mass of papers as a misfortune to be paralleled only by that of the
Alexandrian library.

On the opposite side to the long gallery the anteroom gave access to
a large and lofty vaulted chamber, about one-sixth part of the space
of which--that is, a third of the floor and a half of the height--
was partitioned off by a slight modern wall and ceiling. Two young
clerks occupied the larger unenclosed portion of the large hall,--
for such its size entitled it to be called,--and Signor Fortini's
senior and confidential clerk sat on the top of the ceiling, which
enclosed the smaller portion. A small wooden stair gave access to
this lofty position, which was admirably adapted for keeping an eye
on the youngsters on the floor below. Under the same ceiling, in the
snug little room thus divided off, sat Signor Fortini himself. And a
very snug and bright-looking little room it was, with a pretty
stone-mullioned three-lighted casement window opening to the south;
and in the wall at right angles to it another window, offering
accommodation of a much more unusual and peculiar kind. It opened,
in fact, into the transept of the cathedral, and had been intended
to enable the occupier or occupiers of the apartment, now inhabited
by the lawyer, to enjoy the benefit of attending mass without the
trouble of descending into the church for that purpose. If Signor