"What a pretty scene this is," thought Miriam, with a kindly smile, "and
how like a dove she is herself, the fair, pure creature! The other doves
know her for a sister, I am sure."
Miriam passed beneath the deep portal of the palace, and turning to the
left, began to mount flight after flight of a staircase, which, for the
loftiness of its aspiration, was worthy to be Jacob's ladder, or, at all
events, the staircase of the Tower of Babel. The city bustle, which
is heard even in Rome, the rumble of wheels over the uncomfortable
paving-stones, the hard harsh cries reechoing in the high and narrow
streets, grew faint and died away; as the turmoil of the world will
always die, if we set our faces to climb heavenward. Higher, and higher
still; and now, glancing through the successive windows that threw in
their narrow light upon the stairs, her view stretched across the roofs
of the city, unimpeded even by the stateliest palaces. Only the domes of
churches ascend into this airy region, and hold up their golden crosses
on a level with her eye; except that, out of the very heart of Rome,
the column of Antoninus thrusts itself upward, with St. Paul upon its
summit, the sole human form that seems to have kept her company.
Finally, the staircase came to an end; save that, on one side of the
little entry where it terminated, a flight of a dozen steps gave access
to the roof of the tower and the legendary shrine. On the other side was
a door, at which Miriam knocked, but rather as a friendly announcement
of her presence than with any doubt of hospitable welcome; for, awaiting
no response, she lifted the latch and entered.
"What a hermitage you have found for yourself, dear Hilda!" she,
exclaimed. "You breathe sweet air, above all the evil scents of Rome;
and even so, in your maiden elevation, you dwell above our vanities and
passions, our moral dust and mud, with the doves and the angels for your
nearest neighbors. I should not wonder if the Catholics were to make a
saint of you, like your namesake of old; especially as you have almost
avowed yourself of their religion, by undertaking to keep the lamp
alight before the Virgin's shrine."
"No, no, Miriam!" said Hilda, who had come joyfully forward to greet
her friend. "You must not call me a Catholic. A Christian girl--even
a daughter of the Puritans--may surely pay honor to the idea of divine
Womanhood, without giving up the faith of her forefathers. But how kind
you are to climb into my dove-cote!"
"It is no trifling proof of friendship, indeed," answered Miriam; "I
should think there were three hundred stairs at least."
"But it will do you good," continued Hilda. "A height of some fifty feet
above the roofs of Rome gives me all the advantages that I could get
from fifty miles of distance. The air so exhilarates my spirits, that
sometimes I feel half inclined to attempt a flight from the top of my
tower, in the faith that I should float upward."