“Do you think so?” she asked, brightening; and thought in her own mind, “How very pleasant it is to be reassured when one is distressed about things!”
And then later, when they heard Annunciata in the kitchen, the sisters went out and spoke each a kind and pitying word to her, touching her hard hand softly with their delicate ones; and when she came in later to perform some service, Mr. Vane had also a word of sympathy. But, greatest comfort of all, the Signora and Bianca went up to the Basilica and arranged that a Mass should be said the next morning for the dead, and Annunciata was told that she should go with them to hear it.
That evening the servants were instructed to deny the family to every one but Marion, and, when the sun was low, they all went out on the loggia to see the night come in, and breathe the sweet freshness that still came with it. For it is only in dog-days that the Italian nights are too warm for comfort, and not always then. The great heat comes and goes with the sun.
As they went into the loggia, there was a rustling noise in the garden underneath, and out from the trees leaning against the wall flew clouds of sparrows, and dispersed themselves in every direction. It would appear that every twig must have held a bird.
“I am sorry we have disturbed their nap,” Mr. Vane remarked. “How disgusted they must be with our curious nocturnal habits!”
They did not wish to talk, but only to think and see, and speak a word as the mood took them. The miraculous shadow of St. Peter still hovered above their spirits. They sat in silence, receiving any impression that the scene might make.
Flocks of birds flew in from the seaward, all hastening to some nest or tree-home, their bodies clear and dark, their swift wings twinkling against the topaz sky. The evening star, at first softly visible, like a diamond against another gem, began to grow splendid, while the glowing west changed by imperceptible degrees to a silvery whiteness, and took on an exquisite hint of violet, as if it thought, rather than was, the color. The flowers disappeared in masses of dark green, the gray towers and roofs deepened to black, the pure air was delicious and beaded with coolness, like a summer drift sprinkled with snow. The Ave Maria began to sound here and there, echoed from one church to another. Now and then some bell, besides the Angelus, rang out with a festal clangor for five minutes, a musical chorus coming in from the southward.
“What a grand procession of saints walk for ever through the Roman days!” the Signora exclaimed. “It would be something dazzling to the mind, if one could live on a central height, and hear the bells announce the different festas as they come, singly or in groups, and know who and what each saint is. For example, this evening we hear from the Aventine the rejoicing announcement that to-morrow is the festa of St. Alexis in his church, and from another church is called out the name of St. Leo IV., and from another St. Marcellina, the sister of St. Ambrose, and twelve martyrs will be celebrated in another church. If we should go to-morrow to either of those, we should find them adorned, sprinkled with green out into the very street, High Mass or Vespers going on, and the relics exposed on the altars. To-morrow night other bells will ring in other saints and martyrs. The night after, from a church in Monte Citorio will come the call, Ecco St. Vincent of Paul! and the secular missions and the Sisters of Charity will be doing their best in his honor, and there will be cardinals, and pontifical vespers, and a panegyric. Four or five churches will celebrate their special saints the next day, and the next will be St. Praxides, on the Esquiline here; and the day after we shall be invited to pay our respects to St. Mary Magdalen. And then on to St. James the Great, which will be a great day; and the day after comes St. Anna, the mother of the Blessed Virgin; and, a little later, St. Ignatius marches by. What it would be to set the world aside, sit aloft on some tower there, listen to the announcements rung out from belfry after belfry, meditate, and look with the eyes of faith on what comes! What faces of young maidens, delicate spouses of Christ, bent like clusters of living flowers to listen to the voices that praise them, turned again heavenward to ask for blessings on their clients! What queenly women incline their crowned heads, when the Sacrifice goes up in their name, to see who of those who offer it is worthy and sincere! What glorious men, strong and shining, gaze down into the battle-field where their triumph was won, to read in the upturned faces of the combatants how the fight goes, and who needs their aid! I sometimes think that the saints look only when they are called by name, but that the Blessed Mother looks always. It is the mother who goes after the child who forgets, and watches over it while it sleeps.”
The flocks of sparrows that had fled at their approach, weary of waiting for them to go away, after peeping and reconnoitring the situation, began to come back and flutter in under the foliage again. For a few minutes the trees stirred all through with them, as if with a breeze; then the little heads were tucked under the tired wings, and they all went to sleep, and, perhaps, dreamed.
The family smiled and hushed themselves, not to disturb their rest. Each heart was softly touched by the nearness of so many tiny sleepers. Peace seemed to float silently out from under the thronged branches and laden twigs of those motionless trees, in which no passer-by would have detected a sign of life.