"A likely story!" said Elsie. "I know more about old Rome than you do, and I tell you, child, that you do not stir out a step without me; so if you must go, I must go too,—and like enough it's for my soul's health. I suppose it is," she added, after a reflective pause.
"How beautiful it was that we were welcomed so last night!" said
Agnes,—"that dear lady was so kind to me!"
"Ay, ay, and well she might be!" said Elsie, nodding her head. "But there's no truth in the kindness of the nobles to us, child. They don't do it because they love us, but because they expect to buy heaven by washing our feet and giving us what little they can clip and snip off from their abundance."
"Oh, grandmother," said Agnes, "how can you say so? Certainly, if any one ever spoke and looked lovingly, it was that dear lady."
"Yes, and she rolls away in her carriage, well content, and leaves you with a pair of new shoes and stockings,—you, as worthy of a carriage and a palace as she."
"No, grandmamma; she said she should send for me to talk more with her."
"She said she should send for you?" said Elsie. "Well, well, that is strange, to be sure!—that is wonderful!" she added, reflectively. "But come, child, we must hasten through our breakfast and prayers, and go to see the Pope, and all the great birds with fine feathers that fly after him."
"Yes, indeed!" said Agnes, joyfully. "Oh, grandmamma, what a blessed sight it will be!"
"Yes, child, and a fine sight enough he makes with his great canopy and his plumes and his servants and his trumpeters;—there isn't a king in Christendom that goes so proudly as he."
"No other king is worthy of it," said Agnes. "The Lord reigns in him."