else does, how folk lived in such valleys, by such sea-boards, as these
in the days when daisy-chains and garlands of roses were still hung on
the olive-trees for the nymphs of the grove; when across the bay, at
the end of the narrow neck of blue sea, there clung to the marble rocks
not a church of Saint Laurence, with the sculptured martyr on his
gridiron, but the temple of Venus, protecting her harbor.... Yes, dear
Lady Evelyn, you have guessed aright. Your old friend has returned to
his sins, and is scribbling once more. But no longer at verses or
political pamphlets. I am enthralled by a tragic history, the history
of the fall of the Pagan Gods.... Have you ever read of their
wanderings and disguises, in my friend Heine's little book?

And if you come to Montemirto, you shall see also your _protegee_,
of whom you ask for news. It has just missed being disastrous. Poor
Dionea! I fear that early voyage tied to the spar did no good to her
wits, poor little waif! There has been a fearful row; and it has
required all my influence, and all the awfulness of your Excellency's
name, and the Papacy, and the Holy Roman Empire, to prevent her
expulsion by the Sisters of the Stigmata. It appears that this mad
creature very nearly committed a sacrilege: she was discovered handling
in a suspicious manner the Madonna's gala frock and her best veil of
_pizzo di Cantu_, a gift of the late Marchioness Violante
Vigalcila of Fornovo. One of the orphans, Zaira Barsanti, whom they
call the Rossaccia, even pretends to have surprised Dionea as she was
about to adorn her wicked little person with these sacred garments;
and, on another occasion, when Dionea had been sent to pass some oil
and sawdust over the chapel floor (it was the eve of Easter of the
Roses), to have discovered her seated on the edge of the altar, in the
very place of the Most Holy Sacrament. I was sent for in hot haste, and
had to assist at an ecclesiastical council in the convent parlor, where