"Then you are not a Catholic?" asked the sculptor earnestly.

"Really, I do not quite know what I am," replied Hilda, encountering his

eyes with a frank and simple gaze. "I have a great deal of faith, and

Catholicism seems to have a great deal of good. Why should not I be a

Catholic, if I find there what I need, and what I cannot find elsewhere?

The more I see of this worship, the more I wonder at the exuberance with

which it adapts itself to all the demands of human infirmity. If its

ministers were but a little more than human, above all error, pure from

all iniquity, what a religion would it be!"

"I need not fear your conversion to the Catholic faith," remarked

Kenyon, "if you are at all aware of the bitter sarcasm implied in your

last observation. It is very just. Only the exceeding ingenuity of the

system stamps it as the contrivance of man, or some worse author; not an

emanation of the broad and simple wisdom from on high."

"It may be so," said Hilda; "but I meant no sarcasm."

Thus conversing, the two friends went together down the grand extent

of the nave. Before leaving the church, they turned to admire again its

mighty breadth, the remoteness of the glory behind the altar, and the

effect of visionary splendor and magnificence imparted by the long bars

of smoky sunshine, which travelled so far before arriving at a place of

rest.

"Thank Heaven for having brought me hither!" said Hilda fervently.

Kenyon's mind was deeply disturbed by his idea of her Catholic

propensities; and now what he deemed her disproportionate and misapplied

veneration for the sublime edifice stung him into irreverence.

"The best thing I know of St. Peter's," observed he, "is its equable

temperature. We are now enjoying the coolness of last winter, which, a

few months hence, will be the warmth of the present summer. It has no

cure, I suspect, in all its length and breadth, for a sick soul, but

it would make an admirable atmospheric hospital for sick bodies. What

a delightful shelter would it be for the invalids who throng to Rome,

where the sirocco steals away their strength, and the tramontana stabs

them through and through, like cold steel with a poisoned point! But

within these walls, the thermometer never varies. Winter and summer are

married at the high altar, and dwell together in perfect harmony."

"Yes," said Hilda; "and I have always felt this soft, unchanging climate

of St. Peter's to be another manifestation of its sanctity."

"That is not precisely my idea," replied Kenyon. "But what a delicious

life it would be, if a colony of people with delicate lungs or merely

with delicate fancies--could take up their abode in this ever-mild and

tranquil air. These architectural tombs of the popes might serve for

dwellings, and each brazen sepulchral doorway would become a domestic

threshold. Then the lover, if he dared, might say to his mistress,

'Will you share my tomb with me?' and, winning her soft consent, he

would lead her to the altar, and thence to yonder sepulchre of Pope

Gregory, which should be their nuptial home. What a life would be

theirs, Hilda, in their marble Eden!"




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