"Indeed, if a cardinal should, at the Hall of Sopre Minerva, call out to
Secchi, 'Watchman, what of the night?' Secchi could hear the question;
and no bolder views emanate from any observatory than those which Secchi
sends out.
"I sent a card to Secchi, and awaited a call, well satisfied to have a
little more time for listless strolling among ruins and into the
studios. And so we spent many an hour: picking up land shells from the
top of the Coliseum, gathering violets in the upper chambers of the
Palace of the Caesars,--for the overgrown walls made climbing very
easy,--or, resting upon some broken statue on the Forum, we admired the
arches of the Temple of Peace, thrown upon the rich blue of the sunny
skies.
"Returning one day from a drive, I met two priests descending one of the
upper flights of stairs in the house where I lived. As my rooms had been
blessed once, and holy water sprinkled upon them, I thought perhaps
another process of that kind had just been gone through, and was about
to pass them, when one of them, accosting me, asked if I were the
Signorine Mitchell,--changing his Italian to good English as he saw that
I was, and introducing himself as Father Secchi. He told me that the
younger man was a young _religieux_, and the two turned and went back
with me.
"I recalled, as I saw Father Secchi, an anecdote I had heard, no way to
his credit,--except for ingenious trickery.
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