"Hush!" and remembering whose window it was, I held him; for he would have stalked away.
"Are you there?" came a clear, gentle voice, that fell from the window in the breaking ripples of a fountain plash.
The bit of statuary had become suddenly animate and was not so marble-cold to mankind as it looked. Thinking we had been taken for an expected lover, I, too, was moving off, when the voice, that sounded like the dropping golden notes of a cremona, called out in tones of vibrating alarm:
"Don't—don't go! Priest! Priest! Father! It's you I'm speaking to. I've heard every word!"
Father Holland and I were too much amazed to do aught but gape from each other to the dark window. We could now see the outlines of a white face there.
"If you'd please put one bench on top of another, and balance a bucket on that, I think I could get down," pleaded the low, thrilling voice.
"An' in the name of the seven wonders of creation, what for would you be getting down?" asked the astonished priest.
"Oh! Hurry! Are you getting the bench?" coaxed the voice.
"Faith an' we're not! And we have no thought of doing such a thing!" began the good man with severity.
"Then, I'll jump," threatened the voice.