Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed
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The next morning Elsie awoke, as was her custom,—when the very faintesthue of dawn streaked the horizon. A hen who has seen a hawk balancinghis wings and cawing in mid-air over her downy family could not haveawakened with her feathers, metaphorically speaking, in a more bristlingstate of caution.
"Spirits in the gorge, quotha?" said she to herself, as she vigorouslyadjusted her dress. "I believe so,—spirits in good sound bodies,I believe; and next we shall hear, there will be rope-ladders, andclimbings, and the Lord knows what. I shall go to confession this verymorning, and tell Father Francesco the danger; and instead of taking herdown to sell oranges, suppose I send her to the sisters to carry thering and a basket of oranges?"
"Ah, ah!" she said, pausing, after she was dressed, and addressing acoarse print of Saint Agnes pasted against the wall,—"you look verymeek there, and it was a great thing no doubt to die as you did; but ifyou'd lived to be married and bring up a family of girls, you'd haveknown something greater. Please, don't take offence with a poor oldwoman who has got into the way of speaking her mind freely! I'm foolish,and don't know much,—so, dear lady, pray for me!" And old Elsie benther knee and crossed herself reverently, and then went out, leaving heryoung charge still sleeping.
It was yet dusky dawn when she might have been seen kneeling, with hersharp, clear-cut profile, at the grate of a confession-box in a churchin Sorrento. Within was seated a personage who will have some influenceon our story, and who must therefore be somewhat minutely introduced tothe reader.
Il Padre Francesco had only within the last year arrived in theneighborhood, having been sent as superior of a brotherhood ofCapuchins, whose convent was perched on a crag in the vicinity. Withthis situation came a pastoral care of the district; and Elsie and hergrand-daughter found in him a spiritual pastor very different from thefat, jolly, easy Brother Girolamo, to whose place he had been appointed.The latter had been one of those numerous priests taken from thepeasantry, who never rise above the average level of thought of the bodyfrom which they are drawn. Easy, gossipy, fond of good living and goodstories, sympathetic in troubles and in joys, he had been a generalfavorite in the neighborhood, without exerting any particularlyspiritualizing influence.
It required but a glance at Father Francesco to see that he was in allrespects the opposite of this. It was evident that he came from one ofthe higher classes, by that indefinable air of birth and breeding whichmakes itself felt under every change of costume. Who he might be, whatmight have been his past history, what rank he might have borne, whatpart played in the great warfare of life, was all of course sunk in theoblivion of his religious profession, where, as at the grave, a man laiddown name and fame and past history and worldly goods, and took up acoarse garb and a name chosen from the roll of the saints, in sign thatthe world that had known him should know him no more.
Imagine a man between thirty and forty, with that round, full, evenlydeveloped head, and those c