embassy, to inform him he would have the honor of being received by
his holiness the next day. At each previous visit he had made to Rome,
he had solicited and obtained the same favor; and incited as much by
a religious feeling as by gratitude, he was unwilling to quit the capital
of the Christian world without laying his respectful homage at the feet
of one of St. Peter's successors who has set the rare example of all virtues. He did not then think of the Carnival, for in spite of his condescension and touching kindness, one cannot incline one's self without
awe before the venerable and noble old man called Gregory XVI.
On his return from the Vatican, Franz carefully avoided the Corso; he brought away with him a treasure of pious thoughts, to which the mad gayety of the mascherata would have been profanation.
At ten minutes past five Albert entered, overjoyed. The paillassine had re-assumed her peasant's costume, and as she passed she raised her mask. She was charming. Franz congratulated Albert, who received his congratulations with the air of a man conscious they are merited. He had recognized, by certain unmistakable signs, that his fair incognita belonged to the aristocracy. He had made up his mind to write to her the next day.
Franz remarked, whilst he gave these details, that Albert seemed to have something to ask of him, but that he was unwilling to ask it. He insisted upon it, declaring beforehand that he was willing to make any sacrifice he required.
Albert let himself be pressed just as long as friendship required, and then avowed to Franz that he would do him a great favor by suffering him to occupy the carriage alone the next day. Albert attributed to Franz's absence the extreme kindness of the fair peasant in raising her mask. Franz was not sufficiently egotistical to stop Albert in the middle of an adventure that promised to prove so agree able to his curiosity and so flattering to his vanity. He felt assured that the perfect indiscretion of his friend would duly inform him of all that happened; and as, during three years that he had traveled all over Italy, a similar piece of good fortune had never fallen to his share, Franz was by no means sorry to learn how to act on such an occasion. He therefore promised Albert that he would content himself the morrow with witnessing the Carnival from the windows of the Rospoli Palace.
The next day he saw Albert pass and repass. He held an enormous bouquet, which he doubtless meant to make the bearer of his amorous epistle. This belief was changed into certainty when Franz saw the bouquet (remarkable by a circle of white camellias) in the hand of a charming paillassine dressed in rose-colored satin.
