nity, and conduct the funeral. I asked if there were not different confraternities for different classes of society; he said that all were much alike; that this one was most respectable. He gave me a note of the proposed orders and expense. I observed, "You have not set down any masses!" "Would like to have masses?" I am sorry you to use the phrase; but he caught at the chance. "Then we will have high mass in the church tomorrow with office; and all the other services in the church shall be offered for her."

I wrote to Padre Costa, saying that we had expected him all the morning, and praying him to come directly. He sent word that he would be with me next morning at eight o'clock. I also wrote to Cavaliere S. Volpicella, praying him to call.

My wife and Mrs. Sells laid out the body of dear Agnes; no one else touching it. Lucy lay high on her pillow and seemed to strain her eyes backwards, through the open door, to see, or as if she heard something in the direction of Agnes' room. Perhaps her eyes were fixed, and she could not move them back again. She did so at last, and lay still and motionless as before.

The room in which Agnes had died was not, as,

indeed, she herself had foretold, her own "Watch Tower;" but was the first of three on the lower floor, looking on the garden. In the one next to it, lay Smith; and, beyond her, Bruno. We tidied as well as we could, the first room, and made an altar of the drawers, placing a crucifix, and lighting wax lights on each side with holy water. As I passed backwards and forwards, I sprinkled her lifeless form with it. Most of the servants, and her brother Whittingham, went round to Smith's and Bruno's room, through the garden, rather than face the mystery of death. We moved Whittingham up to Agnes's vacated watch tower. Louie slept in what had been his room, the one next my dressing-room. I went to bed worn out. My unwearied wife watched with Mrs. Sells.

So had passed the festival of the Assumption. Reader the time will come, if it has not come to you already, when home scenes of your own will give an interest to these details.

CHAPTER IX.

DEATH.

The Jesuit and the Curate.-The Confraternity of San Fernando.-The Chapelle Ardente.-My Agnes.-My Lucy. -The look from Heaven.-The house of death.

TUESDAY THE 16TH. Lucy had a quiet night; taking five grains of quinine regularly every two hours with beef tea. This morning, she was no worse; nor was Bruno. I was up early to meet the assistant curate and Padre Costa and Cav. Volpicella. The first of these was telling me what he had done about the funeral, and was planning to take me to select and buy ground in the Campo Santo, when Padre Costa arrived. Volpicella had already come, and did not seem to approve of the curate's plan, but made no positive objection. Padre Costa spoke out at once :

"It cannot stand !" he said.

"It would be de

rogatory and disrespectful to the dead and to the living, if the funeral were not performed by a con

fraternity of people of their own class in life. Society would say that they had gone to a lower class to get it done cheaper."

The curate replied that he could not countermand orders already given; that all that all expenses were

already incurred.

"Impossible!" insisted the Jesuit. "You ought not to have misled this stranger so as to incur expense. He shall not employ your people.”

So saying, he signed to me to follow him and we left the house together.

In the meantime, our two livery servants were, according to the custom of the country, representing us at the parish church; where the rector and assistants were singing Mass and office for Agnes, and where all six of the latter had already offered up the divine sacrifice for her that morning.

Padre Costa and I went to the house of the Duca della Regina, to whom he introduced me. The Duke gave us a letter to the secretary of the congregation of the nobles of San Fernando, recommending them to aggregate our Agnes to their confraternity and to undertake the funeral. With this, we went to the sacristy of the church and settled with the "Esattore" that they should adopt her giving her all the privileges, saying

one hundred Masses for her, and fitting one room in our house as a Chapelle Ardente, hung with black. This was the least they would consent to do; and I would not allow their funeral drapery in more than one room. It was too late for the funeral to take place that day; and we settled it for six o'clock on the following evening.

We returned home. Dear Lucy was lying in the same quiet state; but her teeth were fixed and they could not get down the quinine. Dr. Lanza came at half after one; and, with Roskelly, ordered a blister to be put on her chest, to be followed by a quinine plaster which should re-open her jaws if possible. Dr. Lanza declared that Bruno had not the fever; and that Smith was only hysterical.

Padre Costa stayed on through our early dinner. Lucy could evidently not last long. He heard Smith's confession from her bed. The curate came and asked me to pay for the Masses that had been said that morning. Already with a dead and a dying daughter in the house!" I exclaimed. I handed him over to the Jesuit, who told him this was not the proper time for his application, and dismissed him. The rector, the parroco, was no party to this man's misconduct. About four o'clock, Padre Costa gave the last blessing and ab