at Florence. The Cardinal has always slept in a camp bed. It is covered with a red eider-down quilt. Just a wardrobe, an armchair, a washstand, and on the dressing table at the open window little nicks-nacks of toilet are laid out with distinctive neatness. A door opens from the sleeping apartment to the Cardinal's private oratory. Its almost quaint situation has secured for it the name of "The Noah's Ark." An altar, almost unadorned, has been set up here—very plain and unpretentious. Look where you will, it is all suggestive of the quiet and gentle disposition of a great man, and the illustration shows the sanctuary as it is when the Cardinal passes from his bedroom in the morning. Exactly opposite "The Noah's Ark" is another small oratory, a trifle more decorative perhaps, but still remarkably simple. This is used by the bishops when visiting His Eminence. Just then the butler tells me that the stipulated half-hour is past. This old family servant may be regarded with interest, for when he first ushered me into the presence of the Cardinal, His Eminence remarked that he had served him for over a quarter of a century. His coachman had been with him quite as long, for of all things he disliked it was changing servants.
The reliquary.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry.
Passing through the now ancient ball-room, round the walls of which are a plentiful supply of pails filled to the brim in case of fire, and descending the stone steps once more, a door leading from the library opens into the Cardinal's work-room. What a litter! It is full of baskets, papers and pamphlets are scattered all over the place. Letters, bearing the postmark of every quarter of the globe, lie in a heap, waiting to be opened. The Cardinal, who sits in a great blue arm-chair, and rests back upon a red velvet pillow, expresses sympathy in my astonishment. There are no fewer than eleven tables about, and he happily remarks, "You cannot count the chairs, for every one of them is a bookshelf." Then in a voice of wonderful firmness, and remarkably clear, he invites me to sit close to him.
"Yes, every day brings a multitude of letters. I open them all myself. Many I reply to, and the remainder keep two secretaries busy all day, and then they are by no means finished. I have a long, long day myself. At seven I get up, and ofttimes do not go to bed until past eleven—working all the time. My dinner is early, at 1.30, and tea comes round at 7 o'clock. Newspapers? I manage to get through some of the principal ones every day. Of course, I only 'skim' them over, but I make a point of reading the foreign news." He merrily—and with great humility—remarked in reference to the many books he had written that he "had spoilt as much paper as most people."
"Will you tell me something about your boyhood?" I asked.
"Well, if you want me to talk nonsense I will say that it is a long way back to remember, for I am eighty-three, but I spent
