that big arcade of which the people are so proud, to the Duomo.
Poor Jr. showed few signs of life as we stood before that
immenseness; he said patiently that it resembled the postals,
and followed me inside the portals with languor.

It was all grey hollowness in the vast place. The windows showed
not any colour nor light; the splendid pillars soared up into
the air and disappeared as if they mounted to heights of
invisibility in the sky at night. Very far away, at the other
end of the church it seemed, one lamp was burning, high over the
transept. One could not see the chains of support nor the roof
above it; it seemed a great star, but so much all alone. We
walked down the long aisle to stand nearer to it, the darkness
growing deeper as we advanced. When we came almost beneath, both
of us gazing upward, my companion unwittingly stumbled against a
lady who was standing silently looking up at this light, and who
had failed to notice our approach. The contact was severe enough
to dislodge from her hand her folded parasol, for which I began
to grope.

There was a hurried sentence of excusation from Poor Jr.,
followed by moments of silence before she replied. Then I heard
her voice in startled exclamation:

"Rufus, it is never you?"

He called out, almost loudly,

"Alice!"