Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 23, 1860.] 319

said so." And this debt to themselves they
paid over and over again. For the favourite
nephew of a cardinal, whom all the world fully
expected to be the next pope, is a very impor-
tant man in the Eternal City; and not even
Roman prudence could prevent ladies' tongues
from saying of him, and especially of his wife,
what they owed to themselves to say.

Gregory the Thirteenth, meanwhile, was be-
coming visibly more and more infirm. And
Vittoria's ultimate greatness seemed to be
prosperously and rapidly ripening. If only,
indeed, the Cardinal di Montalto should survive
the reigning Pope. For the mild and gentle old
man was to all appearance little less infirm than
the man he was to succeed. As usual he was
seen, though sadly bent by age and much
troubled at times by his cough, assiduous at all
his religious duties. In the consistorial meet-
ings of the Sacred College, though constant in his
attendance, and ever one of the first cardinals
in his place, he took but little part in debate,
having apparently no strong political opinions,
and being anxious only about the punctual dis-
charge of his own especial duties and devout
practices. At mass and other public devotions
he was seen constantly. And these devout exer-
cises, it was evident, so called for the exertion
of all the little strength and life he had in him,
that if ever worldly schemes and ambitions had
held any place in his chastened heart, they had
long ago burned themselves out. As for the
talk and schemes about raising him to the
papacy, he would never take any part in them;
and would reply to any mention of the subject
only by a sad smile, and a gentle shake of the
venerable old bent head, generally interrupted
by a return of that distressing and ominous
churchyard cough. What a pope for a nephew?

CHAPTER IV. THE WAY OF THE WORLD IN ROME.

ONE night, after the family of Francesco
Peretti had retired, the household was disturbed
by an impetuous knocking at the great door of
the palace. And in a minute or two afterwards
Catarina, the lady Vittoria's maid, came in great
haste into the chamber of her master and mis-
tress, and put a letter into the hands of the
former. She supposed, she said, that it must be
something of great importance, for it had been
brought to the door in hot haste by Mancino,
who had charged her to deliver it without a
moment's delay to her master, as any loss of
time would be of disastrous consequence.

Now, the man who was known by this nick-
name of "Mancino" —the left-handed, in Eng-
lish was one Domini co di Acquaviva, a bandit,
whom Peretti and his uncle the cardinal pro-
tected by affording him sometimes an asylum,
when hard pressed by the police. He was a
Fermo man—a fellow-countryman of the Perettis
—a circumstance quite sufficient, according to
the ideas and feelings of that day, to account
for their protecting him against the law.

Francesco's first impulse was to tell the man
to come up, that he might ask him further
about his mission. But he was told that the

Maucino had gone off hurriedly as soon as ever
he had given the letter. Francesco found that
it was from his not too respectable brother-in-
law, Marcello Accoramboni. It urged him to
come to him forthwith to a certain spot on the
Monte Cavallo, where he was waiting for him;
adding further, that his presence was needed on
an affair of the utmost importance, and of the
most secret nature, in which any delay would be
fatal. Peretti does not seem to have hesitated
a minute about doing as he was requested. He
dressed himself in all haste, girded on a sword,
and ordered one single servant to be ready to
attend him with a torch. But, as he was about
to leave the house, his mother Cammilla threw
herself in his way, and implored him not to go
forth at that hour of the night. Vittoria also
joined her mother-in-law, and added her sup-
plications to her young husband not to put him-
self into danger. Cammilla, poor mother, clung
to his knees in the extremity of her anxiety to
prevent her son from accepting the strange in-
vitation. The presence of Vittoria prevented
her from saying all that she might otherwise
have urged, as to the character and habits of
this bandit brother-in-law; but she observed
that such a step on his part was something
wholly unprecedented, that he had never before
had any such business in conjunction with her
son, as could give rise to such a demand for so
untimely an interview; and finally, she declared
that she had a presentiment of evil such as on
former occasions had never deceived her for-
getting, poor soul, that the infallibility of her
presentiment, if trusted, must make her suppli-
cation necessarily of no avail. In support of
the reasonableness of her fears, she entreated
him to remember, says the chronicler, " the ex-
treme indulgence of the times;" by which she
meant the utter relaxation of all law and order,
which made it unsafe for any man to traverse
the streets of Rome after nightfall.

Francesco, however, was not to be deterred
from doing as he proposed. No danger, he
said, should prevent him from treating the
brother of his adored Vittoria as his own, so he
broke away from the weeping women, and went
forth into the streets with one man bearing a
torch before him. But the unhappy mother,
clinging yet to the possibility of frustrating her
infallible presentiment, as a last effort rushed
after him, and catching him by his cloak flying
in the night-wind, hurriedly poured into his car
all the grounds for misgiving, that the poor
woman could not bring herself to speak oat
before her daughter-in-law. Was not this union
of two such men as Marcello Accoramboni raid
the Mancino ominous of evil, both bandits,
both men stained with blood, as they were?
For wat good or lawful purpose could two such
men want him in the streets of Rome at that
hour of the night? Why had the Mancino, the
bringer of this fatal letter, gone off in such a
hurry, avoiding all questioning? If Marcello
had been in need of defence from immediate
danger, would he have sent away from him a
man carrying arms, and accustomed to the use