Had our party consisted of men only, we should have been received in the convent, where there was a very handsome suite of rooms reserved for the purpose.  But females could not enter the precincts of the cloister.  The father in question very shortly made his appearance, a magnificent figure, whose long black beard flowing over his perfectly clean white robe made as picturesque a presentment of a friar as could be desired.  He was extremely courteous, and seemed to desire nothing better than to talk ad libitum.  But for my fellow travellers, rest after their broiling ride was the thing most urgently needed.

And this requirement brought us to the consideration of our accommodation for the night.  The humble little forestieria at Camaldoli was not built for any such purpose.  It never, of course, entered into the heads of the builders that need could ever arise for receiving any save male guests.  And for such, as I have said, a handsome suite of large rooms, both sitting-rooms and bedrooms, with huge fireplaces for the burning of colossal logs, is provided.  Ordinary brethren of the order would not be lodged there.  The magnificence is reserved for a Cardinal (Gregory XVI. who had been a Camaldolese frequently came here), or a travelling Bishop and his suite, or a heretic English or American milord!  But not for any daughter of Eve!  And the makeshift room over a carpenter’s shop, which is called the forestieria, has been devoted to the purpose only in consequence of the incomprehensible mania of female English heretics for visiting the disciples of St. Romuald.  And there the food supplied from the convent can be brought to them.  But for the night?  I had warned my friends that they would have to occupy different quarters; and it now became necessary to introduce George Eliot to the place she was to pass the night in.

At the distance of about twenty minutes’ walk above the convent, across a lovely but very steep extent of beautifully green turf, encircled by the surrounding forest, there is a cow-house, with an annexed lodging for the cowherd and his wife.  And over the cow stable is—­or was, for the monks have been driven away and all is altered now!—­a bedchamber with three or four beds in it, which the toleration of the community has provided for the accommodation of the unaccountable female islanders.  I have assisted in conveying parties of ladies up that steep grassy slope by the light of a full moon, when all the beds had to be somewhat more than fully occupied.  But fortunately George Eliot had the whole chamber to herself—­perhaps, however, not quite fortunately, for it was a very novel and not altogether reassuring experience for her to be left absolutely alone for the night, to the protection of an almost entirely unintelligible cowherd and his wife!  But there was no help for it!  G.H.  Lewes did not seem to be quite easy about it; but George Eliot did not appear to be troubled by the slightest alarm or misgiving.  She seemed, indeed, to enjoy all the novelty and strangeness of the situation; and when she bade us good-night from the one little window of her chamber over the cows, as we turned to walk down the slope to our grand bedrooms at the convent, she said she should be sure to be ready when we came for her in the morning, as the cows would call her, if the cowherds failed to do so.