As she opened the windows and looked across the ravine to the gray rocks beyond, the scene was so peaceful, such a reproachful commentary upon the troubled night, that she concluded to keep silent about it.  And then, since neither her friends nor the coffee presented themselves, she set to work to examine the engravings.  The first one her eye fell upon made her start, look again, and finally climb up on the bed and lift it off the rusty nail, covering herself with dust in the operation, and carry it to the window.  “Yes,” she said finally, after having examined it and the text, a mixture of Latin and old Italian, very thoroughly, “it is the same, the very same:  this discovery would compensate for a whole series of nights such as I have just been through.”  And, putting it down, she ran to her travelling-bag and drew from its depths a very small painting on copper, and compared them.  Hearing just then her friends at the door, she ran to open it with both pictures in her hands.  “What do you think?  I have made a discovery.  Look!  My picture on copper, which Pippo in Siena found in the little dark antiquary-shop after his brother’s death and sold to me for sixty cents, is the same as this old engraving of the famous Annunciation picture in the Church of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence, which is only unveiled in times of national calamity.  You know, the people believe it was painted by angels.  Here, you see, the text says it was revered in 1252, the artist being unknown.  I knew the original of my picture must be very old, for Mary is saying in this Latin scroll coming out of her mouth, ’Behold, the servant of the Lord,’ and only the earliest painters, unable to express their idea by the vivacity of their figures, made their mission apparent by the scrolls coming from their mouths.”  They were still examining the engraving, when the padre came to take coffee with them and to ask if they would go down to mass, which would commence in a few minutes.  There was only time for him to say that he hoped the owls had not disturbed them, adding, as they were on their way to the church, “They are our bane, devouring the chickens and keeping us awake.  It is a never-ending, but perhaps needful, discipline.”

Fra Lorenzo was officiating at the altar as they entered the large church, before a small number of peasants, the women making a picturesque group in their light flowered bodices and their red petticoats visible from beneath their tucked-up gowns, and their gay cotton handkerchiefs knotted about their heads, since no woman’s head may be uncovered in the Catholic Church.