But the little men--as they seemed to Lucy's eyes--recovered themselves in a twinkling, threw themselves stoutly on the black gentry, like sheep dogs on the sheep, worried them back into line, collared a few bold spirits here, formed a new cordon there, till all was once more in tolerable order, and a dangerous pressure on the central door was averted.
Meanwhile Lucy was hurried forward with the privileged crowd going to the tribunes, towards the sacristy door on the south.
'Let's catch up Mrs.Burgoyne'-- said the young man, looking ahead with some anxiety--'Manisty's no use.

He'll begin to moon and forget all about her.

I say!--Look at the building--and the sky behind it! Isn't it stunning ?' And they threw up a hasty glance as they sped along at the superb walls and apses and cornices of the southern side--golden ivory or wax against the blue .-- The pigeons flew in white eddies above their heads; the April wind flushed Lucy's cheek, and played with her black mantilla.

All qualms were gone.

After her days of seclusion in the villa garden, she was passionately conscious of this great Rome and its magic; and under her demure and rather stately air, her young spirits danced and throbbed with pleasure.
'How that black lace stuff does become all you women!'-- said Reggie Brooklyn, throwing a lordly and approving glance at her and his cousin Eleanor, as they all met and paused amid the crowd that was concentrating itself on the sacristy door; and Lucy, instead of laughing at the lad's airs, only reddened a little more brightly and found it somehow sweet--April sweet--that a young man on this spring morning should admire her; though after all, she was hardly more inclined to fall in love with Reggie Brooklyn than with Manisty's dear collie puppy, that had been left behind, wailing, at the villa.
At the actual door the young man quietly possessed himself of Mrs.
Burgoyne, while Manisty with an unconscious look of relief fell behind.
'And you, Miss Foster,--keep closer--my coat's all at your service--it'll stand a pull.