“It is difficult to get these things straight in one’s mind,” said Mrs. Crowder.  “As thee has lived so long, it seems a pity that thee was not born sooner.”

“I have often thought that,” said her husband; “but we should all try to be content with what we have.  And now let us skip out of those regions of the dusky past.  I feel in the humor of telling a love-story, and one has just come into my mind.”

“Thee is so fond of that sort of thing,” said his wife, with a smile, “that we will not interfere with thee.”

“In the summer of the year 950,” said Mr. Crowder, “I was traveling, and had just come over from France into the province of Piedmont, in northern Italy.  I was then in fairly easy circumstances, and was engaged in making some botanical researches for a little book which I had planned to write on a medical subject.  I will explain to you later how I came to do a great deal of that sort of thing.

“Late upon a warm afternoon I was entering the town of Ivrea, and passing a large stone building, I stopped to examine some leaves on a bush which grew by the roadside.  While I was doing this, and comparing the shape and size of the leaves with some drawings I had in a book which I took from my pocket, I heard a voice behind me and apparently above me.  Some one was speaking to me, and speaking in Latin.  I looked around and up, but could see no one; but above me, about ten or twelve feet from the ground, there was a long, narrow slit of a window such as is seen in prisons.  Again I heard the voice, and it said to me distinctly in Latin, ’Are you free to go where you choose?’ It was the voice of a woman.

“As I wished to understand the situation better before I answered, I went over to the other side of the road, where I could get a better view of the window.  There I saw behind this narrow opening a part of the face of a woman.  This stone edifice was evidently a prison.  I approached the window, and standing under it, first looking from side to side to see that no one was coming along the road, I said in Latin, ’I am free to go where I choose.’

“Then the voice above said, ‘Wait!’ but it spoke in Italian this time.  You may be sure I waited, and in a few minutes a little package dropped from the window and fell almost at my feet.  I stooped and picked it up.  It was a piece of paper, in which was wrapped a bit of mortar to give it weight.

“I opened the paper and read, written in a clear and scholarly hand, these words:  ’I am a most unfortunate prisoner.  I believe you are an honest and true man, because I saw you studying plants and reading from a book which you carry.  If you wish to do more good than you ever did before, come to this prison again after dark.’

“I looked up and said quickly, in Italian, ‘I shall be here.’  I was about to speak again and ask for some more definite directions, but I heard the sound of voices around a turn in the road, and I thought it better to continue my walk into the town.