I think,) and there was a careful finish about the work, and an attention to details that betrayed the artist’s love of his labors as well as his schooled ability.  I asked the good-natured monk who accompanied us, who did this?  And he said, “We did it”—­meaning himself and his brethren up stairs.  I could see that the old friar took a high pride in his curious show.  We made him talkative by exhibiting an interest we never betrayed to guides.

“Who were these people?”

“We—­up stairs—­Monks of the Capuchin order—­my brethren.”

“How many departed monks were required to upholster these six parlors?”

“These are the bones of four thousand.”

“It took a long time to get enough?”

“Many, many centuries.”

“Their different parts are well separated—­skulls in one room, legs in another, ribs in another—­there would be stirring times here for a while if the last trump should blow.  Some of the brethren might get hold of the wrong leg, in the confusion, and the wrong skull, and find themselves limping, and looking through eyes that were wider apart or closer together than they were used to.  You can not tell any of these parties apart, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, I know many of them.”

He put his finger on a skull.  “This was Brother Anselmo—­dead three hundred years—­a good man.”

He touched another.  “This was Brother Alexander—­dead two hundred and eighty years.  This was Brother Carlo—­dead about as long.”

Then he took a skull and held it in his hand, and looked reflectively upon it, after the manner of the grave-digger when he discourses of Yorick.

“This,” he said, “was Brother Thomas.  He was a young prince, the scion of a proud house that traced its lineage back to the grand old days of Rome well nigh two thousand years ago.  He loved beneath his estate.  His family persecuted him; persecuted the girl, as well.  They drove her from Rome; he followed; he sought her far and wide; he found no trace of her.  He came back and offered his broken heart at our altar and his weary life to the service of God.  But look you.  Shortly his father died, and likewise his mother.  The girl returned, rejoicing.  She sought every where for him whose eyes had used to look tenderly into hers out of this poor skull, but she could not find him.  At last, in this coarse garb we wear, she recognized him in the street.  He knew her.  It was too late.  He fell where he stood.  They took him up and brought him here.  He never spoke afterward.  Within the week he died.  You can see the color of his hair—­faded, somewhat—­by this thin shred that clings still to the temple.  This, [taking up a thigh bone,] was his.  The veins of this leaf in the decorations over your head, were his finger-joints, a hundred and fifty years ago.”