The Eternal City | Page 5

put her little waif-and-stray

hands together and said:
"Our Fader oo art in Heben, alud be dy name. Dy kingum tum. Dy will
be done on eard as it is in Heben. Gib us dis day our dayey bread, and
forgib us our trelspasses as we forgib dem dat trelspass ayenst us. And
lee us not into temstashuns, but deliber us from ebil ... for eber and eber.
Amen."
The house in Soho Square was perfectly silent an hour afterward. In the
surgery the lamp was turned down, the cat was winking and yawning at
the fire, and the doctor sat in a chair in front of the fading glow and
listened to the measured breathing of the boy behind him. It dropped at
length, like a pendulum that is about to stop, into the noiseless beat of
innocent sleep, and then the good man got up and looked down at the
little head on the pillow.
Even with the eyes closed it was a beautiful face; one of the type which
great painters have loved to paint for their saints and angels--sweet, soft,
wise, and wistful. And where did it come from? From the Campagna
Romana, a scene of poverty, of squalor, of fever, and of death!
The doctor thought of his own little daughter, whose life had been a
long holiday, and then of the boy whose days had been an unbroken
bondage.
"Yet who knows but in the rough chance of life our little Roma may not
some day ... God forbid!"
The boy moved in his sleep and laughed the laugh of a dream that is
like the sound of a breeze in soft summer grass, and it broke the thread
of painful reverie.
"Poor little man! he has forgotten all his troubles."
Perhaps he was back in his sunny Italy by this time, among the vines
and the oranges and the flowers, running barefoot with other children
on the dazzling whiteness of the roads!... Perhaps his mother in heaven
was praying her heart out to the Blessed Virgin to watch over her

fatherless darling cast adrift upon the world!
The train of thought was interrupted by voices in the street, and the
doctor drew the curtain of the window aside and looked out. The snow
had ceased to fall, and the moon was shining; the leafless trees were
casting their delicate black shadows on the whitened ground, and the
yellow light of a lantern on the opposite angle of the square showed
where a group of lads were singing a Christmas carol.
"While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the
ground, The angel of the Lord came down, and glory shone around."
Doctor Roselli closed the curtain, put out the lamp, touched with his
lips the forehead of the sleeping boy, and went to bed.
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PART ONE--THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
TWENTY YEARS LATER
I
It was the last day of the century. In a Bull proclaiming a Jubilee the
Pope had called his faithful children to Rome, and they had come from
all quarters of the globe. To salute the coming century, and to dedicate
it, in pomp and solemn ceremony, to the return of the world to the Holy
Church, one and universal, the people had gathered in the great Piazza
of St. Peter.
Boys and women were climbing up every possible elevation, and a
bright-faced girl who had conquered a high place on the base of the
obelisk was chattering down at a group of her friends who were
listening to their cicerone.
"Yes, that is the Vatican," said the guide, pointing to a square building
at the back of the colonnade, "and the apartments of the Pope are those

on the third floor, just on the level of the Loggia of Raphael. The
Cardinal Secretary of State used to live in the rooms below, opening on
the grand staircase that leads from the Court of Damasus. There's a
private way up to the Pope's apartment, and a secret passage to the
Castle of St. Angelo."
"Say, has the Pope got that secret passage still?"
"No, sir. When the Castle went over to the King the connection with
the Vatican was cut off. Ah, everything is changed since those days!
The Pope used to go to St. Peter's surrounded by his Cardinals and
Bishops, to the roll of drums and the roar of cannon. All that is over
now. The present Pope is trying to revive the old condition seemingly,
but what can he do? Even the Bull proclaiming the Jubilee laments the
loss of the temporal power which would have permitted him to renew
the enchantments of the Holy City."
"Tell him it's just lovely as it is," said the girl on the obelisk, "and when
the illuminations begin...."
"Say,