We went last night to the midnight mass at Santa Maria Maggiore.

Edward is always incalculable at these functions; sometimes bored to death, sometimes all enthusiasm and sympathy.

Last night the crowd jarred him, and I wished we had not come.

But as we walked home through the moonlit streets, full of people hurrying in and out of the churches, of the pifferari with their cloaks and pipes--black and white nuns--brown monks--lines of scarlet seminarists, and the like, he suddenly broke out with the prayer of the First Christmas Mass--I must give it in English, for I have forgotten the Latin: '"_O God, who didst cause this most holy Night to be illumined by the rising of the true Light, we beseech Thee that we who know on earth the secret shining of His splendour may win in Heaven His eternal joys_." 'We were passing through Monte Cavallo, beside the Two Divine Horsemen who saved Rome of old.

The light shone on the fountains--it seemed as if the two godlike figures were just about to leap, in fierce young strength, upon their horses.
'Edward stopped to look at them.
'"And we say that the world lives by Science! Fools! when has it lived by anything else than Dreams--at Athens, at Rome, or Jerusalem ?" 'We stayed by the fountains talking.