Among the crowd they had noticed a tall man, very thin, with a lean, cadaverous face, and long, lanky, rusty black hair.  He wore a white necktie, and a suit of rusty black clothes.  He also held a large umbrella in his hand, which he kept carefully up out of the way of the crowd.  This figure was a conspicuous one, even in that crowd, and the ladies had noticed it at the very first.

As the Pope drove up they saw this long, slim, thin, cadaverous man, in his suit of rusty black, edging his way through the crowd, so as to get nearer, until at length he stood immediately behind the line of Swiss Guards, who were keeping the crowd back, and forming a passageway for the Pope.  Meanwhile his Holiness was advancing through the crowd.  He reached out his hand, and smiled and bowed and murmured a blessing over them.  At last his carriage stopped.  The door was opened, and several attendants prepared to receive the Pope and assist him out.

At that instant the tall, slim stranger pushed forward his sallow head, with its long, lanky, and rusty black hair, between two Swiss Guards, and tried to squeeze between them.  The Swiss at first stood motionless, and the stranger had actually succeeded in getting about half-way through.  He was immediately in front of his Holiness, and staring at him with all his might.  His Holiness saw this very peculiar face, and was so surprised that he uttered an involuntary exclamation, and stopped short in his descent.

The stranger stopped short too, and quite involuntarily also.  For the Swiss Guards, irritated by his pertinacity, and seeing the Pope’s gesture, turned suddenly, and two of them grasped the stranger by his coat collar.

It was, of course, an extremely undignified attitude for the Swiss Guards, whose position is simply an ornamental one.  Nothing but the most unparalleled outrage to their dignity could have moved them to this.  So unusual a display of energy, however, did not last long.  A few persons in citizens’ clothes darted forward from among the crowd, and secured the stranger; while the Swiss, seeing who they were, resumed their erect, rigid, and ornamental attitude.  The Pope found no longer any obstacle, and resumed his descent.  For a moment the stranger had created a wide-spread consternation in the breasts of all the different and very numerous classes of men who composed that crowd.  The arrest was the signal for a murmur of voices, among which the ladies heard those of the knot of Englishmen who stood near.

“It’s some Garibaldian,” said they.

And this was the general sentiment.

Several hours after this they were at home, and a caller was announced.  It was the Baron Atramonte.

“Atramonte!” said Lady Dalrymple.  “Who is that?  We’re not at home, of course.  Atramonte!  Some of these Italian nobles.  Really, I think we have seen enough of them.  Who is he, Kitty?”

“I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea.  I never heard of him in my life.”