“That’s my master—­a fine-made man,” answers Cassandra, frowning and pinching in her lips, with an affronted air, “Take care what you say about my master, Brigitta; I shall allow no observations.”

Brigitta turns aside, puts her tongue in her cheek, and glances maliciously at Carlotta, who nods.

“How do you know how your master is made, Cassandra mia?” asks Brigitta, looking round, with a short laugh.

“Because I have eyes in my head,” replies Cassandra, defiantly.  “My master, the padrone of the Pelican Hotel, is not a man one sees every day in the week!”

A tall priest now appears from within the church, coming down the nave, in company with a rosy-faced old gentleman, who, although using a stick, walks briskly and firmly.  He has a calm and pleasant face, and his hair, which lies in neat little curls upon his forehead, is as white as snow.  One moment the rosy old gentleman talks eagerly with the priest; the next he sinks upon his knees on the pavement, and murmurs prayers at a side altar.  He does this so abruptly that the tall priest stumbles over him.  There are many apologies, and many bows.  Then the old gentleman rises, dusts his clothes carefully with a white handkerchief, and walks on, talking eagerly as before.  Both he and the priest bend low to the high altar, dip their fingers in the holy-water, cross themselves, bend again to the altar, turning right and left—­before leaving the cathedral.

“That’s Fra Pacifico,” cries Carlotta, greatly excited—­“Fra Pacifico, the Marchesa Guinigi’s chaplain.  He’s come down from Corellia for the festival.”—­Carlotta is proud to show that she knows somebody, as well as Cassandra.  “When he is in Lucca, Fra Pacifico passes my shop every morning to say mass in the marchesa’s private chapel.  He knows all her sins.”

“And the old gentleman with him,” puts in Cassandra, twitching her hook nose, “is old Trenta—­Cesare Trenta, the cavaliere.  Bless his dear old face!  The duke loved him well.  He was chamberlain at the palace.  He’s a gentleman all over, is Cavaliere Trenta.  There—­there.  Look!”—­and she points eagerly—­“that’s the Red count, Count Marescotti, the republican.”

Cassandra lowers her voice, afraid to be overheard, and fixes her eyes on a man whose every feature and gesture proclaimed him an aristocrat.

Excited by the grandeur of the service, Marescotti’s usually pale face is suffused with color; his large black eyes shine with inner lights.  Looking neither to the right nor to the left, he walks through the atrium, straight down the marble steps, into the piazza.  As he passes the three women they draw back against the wall.  There is a dignity about Marescotti that involuntarily awes them.

“That’s the man for the people!”—­Cassandra still speaks under her breath.—­“He’ll give us a republic yet.”