with a sword and laced coat, who would go to court and perhaps be an officer in the Duke’s army or in that of some neighbouring prince; but, viewed from the lowliness of his nine years, that dazzling prospect was too remote to yield much solace for the cuffs and sneers, the ragged shoes and sour bread of the present.  The fog outside had thickened, and the face of Odo’s friend was now discernible only as a spot of pallor in the surrounding dimness.  Even he seemed farther away than usual, withdrawn into the fog as into that mist of indifference which lay all about Odo’s hot and eager spirit.  The child sat down among the gourds and medlars on the muddy floor and hid his face against his knees.

He had sat there a long time when the noise of wheels and the crack of a postillion’s whip roused the dogs chained in the stable.  Odo’s heart began to beat.  What could the sounds mean?  It was as though the flood-tide of the unknown were rising about him and bursting open the chapel door to pour in on his loneliness.  It was, in fact, Filomena who opened the door, crying out to him in an odd Easter Sunday voice, the voice she used when she had on her silk neckerchief and gold chain or when she was talking to the bailiff.

Odo sprang up and hid his face in her lap.  She seemed, of a sudden, nearer to him than any one else—­a last barrier between himself and the mystery that awaited him outside.

“Come, you poor sparrow,” she said, dragging him across the threshold of the chapel, “the abate is here asking for you;” and she crossed herself, as though she had named a saint.

Odo pulled away from her with a last wistful glance at Saint Francis, who looked back at him in an ecstasy of commiseration.

“Come, come,” Filomena repeated, dropping to her ordinary key as she felt the resistance of the little boy’s hand.  “Have you no heart, you wicked child?  But, to be sure, the poor innocent doesn’t know!  Come cavaliere, your illustrious mother waits.”

“My mother?” The blood rushed to his face; and she had called him “cavaliere”!

“Not here, my poor lamb!  The abate is here; don’t you see the lights of the carriage?  There, there, go to him.  I haven’t told him, your reverence; it’s my silly tender-heartedness that won’t let me.  He’s always been like one of my own creatures to me—­” and she confounded Odo by bursting into tears.

The abate stood on the doorstep.  He was a tall stout man with a hooked nose and lace ruffles.  His nostrils were stained with snuff and he took a pinch from a tortoise-shell box set with the miniature of a lady; then he looked down at Odo and shrugged his shoulders.

Odo was growing sick with apprehension.  It was two days before the appointed time for his weekly instruction and he had not prepared his catechism.  He had not even thought of it—­and the abate could use the cane.  Odo stood silent and envied girls, who are not disgraced by crying.  The tears were in his throat, but he had fixed principles about crying.  It was his opinion that a little boy who was a cavaliere might weep when he was angry or sorry, but never when he was afraid; so he held his head high and put his hand to his side, as though to rest it on his sword.