By the activity of the man from Subiaco a curious conveyance was ready for us, being something between a gig and a cart, and a couple of strong horses were hired for the long drive.  The countryman, who had grown rich in the last three days, offered to buy the thin little ass which had carried me so far and so well.  He observed that he was blind of one eye, which I had never found out, and I do not believe it was true.  The way he showed it was by snapping his fingers close to the eye in question.  The donkey winked, and the countryman said that if the eye were good the beast would see that the noise was made by the fingers, and would not be frightened, and would therefore not wink.

“You see,” said he, “he thinks it is a whip cracking, and so he is afraid.”

“Do donkeys always wink when they are frightened?” I inquired.  “It is very interesting.”

“Yes,” said the countryman, “they mostly do.”  At all events, I was obliged to take the man’s own price, which was little enough,—­not a third of what I had given.

The roads were good, and the long and the short of the matter, without any more details, is that we reached Rome very early the next morning, having caught the night train from Naples.  Hedwig slept most of the time in the carriage and all the time in the train, while Nino, who never seemed to tire or to need sleep, sat watching her with wide, happy eyes.  But perhaps he slept a little too, for I did, and I cannot answer for his wakefulness through every minute of the night.

Once I asked him what he intended to do in Rome.

“We will go to the hotel Costanzi,” he answered, which is a foreigners’ resort.  And if she is rested enough we will come down to you, and see what we can do about being married properly in church by the old curato.”

“The marriage by the sindaco is perfectly legal,” I remarked.

“It is a legal contract, but it is not a marriage that pleases me,” he said, gravely.

“But, caro mio, without offence, your bride is a Protestant, a Lutheran; not to mince matters, a heretic.  They will make objections.”

“She is an angel,” said Nino, with great conviction.

“But the angels neither marry nor are given in marriage,” I objected, arguing the point to pass the time.

“What do you make of it, then, Messer Cornelio?” he asked, with a smile.

“Why, as a heretic she ought to burn, and as an angel she ought not to marry.”

“It is better to marry than to burn,” retorted Nino, triumphantly.

“Diavolo!  Have you had St. Paul for a tutor?” I asked, for I knew the quotation, being fond of Greek.

“I heard a preacher cite it once at the Gesu, and I thought it a good saying.”

Early in the morning we rolled into the great station of Rome, and took an affectionate leave of each other, with the promise that Hedwig and Nino would visit me in the course of the day.  I saw them into a carriage, with Nino’s small portmanteau, and Hedwig’s bundle, and then mounted a modest omnibus that runs from the termini to St. Peter’s, and goes very near my house.