aspect who approached slowly, leaning on the arm of a fair-haired
youth--his grandson, I supposed. He wore a long white beard, and an air
of apostolic detachment from the affairs of this world. They came
nearer. The boy was listening, deferentially, to some remark of the
elder; his lips were parted in attention and his candid, sunny face
would have rejoiced the heart of della Robbia. They passed within a few
feet of me, lovingly engrossed in one another.

"Well?" I queried, turning to my informant and anxious to learn what
misdeeds could be laid to the charge of such godlike types of humanity.

But that person was no longer at my side. He had quietly withdrawn
himself, in the interval; he had evanesced, "moved on."

An oracular and elusive citizen. ...




III

THE ANGEL OF MANFREDONIA


Whoever looks at a map of the Gargano promontory will see that it is
besprinkled with Greek names of persons and places--Matthew, Mark,
Nikander, Onofrius, Pirgiano (Pyrgos) and so forth. Small wonder, for
these eastern regions were in touch with Constantinople from early days,
and the spirit of Byzance still hovers over them. It was on this
mountain that the archangel Michael, during his first flight to Western