The sun was shining so brightly by this time that the girls had to raise their parasols to shade their eyes as they looked along the crowded street. It was filled with carriages all going in the same direction as themselves. The sidewalks, too, were packed closely. There were all kinds of people; lords and ladies, priests in their shovel hats, cardinals in their elegant robes. All would soon enter the great church. Their faces looked happy and full of joy.
"Shall we not be crowded worse than we were last night?" asked Mrs. Gray. She looked a little bit worried.
"O no, you need have no fear about that," her husband replied. "Forty thousand people can easily gather in Saint Peter's and then it will not be full, by any means."
The carriage stopped in front of a long covered archway built of marble. They stepped down and, entering it, soon found themselves in the court in front of the church.
The church itself is built in the shape of an immense cross, and where the four lines of the cross meet, there is a huge dome overhead.
"I can see the dome of Saint Peter's from my home on the mountain," Tessa said to Lucy. "If I were far away in another part of the world, I am sure I should picture it in my mind whenever I thought of Rome."
CHAPTER V.
SAINT PETER'S