this season. I'm very fond of them, and felt quite pleased at the thought
that I should eat some at dinner."

Victorine began to laugh: "Ah! yes, Contessina, I understand," she
replied. "They were some figs which that priest of Frascati, whom you
know very well, brought yesterday evening as a present for his Eminence.
I was there, and I heard him repeat three or four times that they were a
present, and were to be put on his Eminence's table without a leaf being
touched. And so one did as he said."

"Well, that's nice," retorted Benedetta with comical indignation. "What
/gourmands/ my uncle and Dario are to regale themselves without us! They
might have given us a share!"

Donna Serafina thereupon intervened, and asked Victorine: "You are
speaking, are you not, of that priest who used to come to the villa at
Frascati?"

"Yes, yes, Abbe Santobono his name is, he officiates at the little church
of St. Mary in the Fields. He always asks for Abbe Paparelli when he
calls; I think they were at the seminary together. And it was Abbe
Paparelli who brought him to the pantry with his basket last night. To
tell the truth, the basket was forgotten there in spite of all the
injunctions, so that nobody would have eaten the figs to-day if Abbe
Paparelli hadn't run down just now and carried them upstairs as piously
as if they were the Blessed Sacrament. It's true though that his Eminence
is so fond of them."

"My brother won't do them much honour to-day," remarked the Princess. "He
is slightly indisposed. He passed a bad night." The repeated mention of