And over the cow stable is--or was, for the monks have been driven away and all is altered now!--a bedchamber with three or four beds in it, which the toleration of the community has provided for the accommodation of the unaccountable female islanders.

I have assisted in conveying parties of ladies up that steep grassy slope by the light of a full moon, when all the beds had to be somewhat more than fully occupied.

But fortunately George Eliot had the whole chamber to herself--perhaps, however, not quite fortunately, for it was a very novel and not altogether reassuring experience for her to be left absolutely alone for the night, to the protection of an almost entirely unintelligible cowherd and his wife! But there was no help for it! G.H.Lewes did not seem to be quite easy about it; but George Eliot did not appear to be troubled by the slightest alarm or misgiving.

She seemed, indeed, to enjoy all the novelty and strangeness of the situation; and when she bade us good-night from the one little window of her chamber over the cows, as we turned to walk down the slope to our grand bedrooms at the convent, she said she should be sure to be ready when we came for her in the morning, as the cows would call her, if the cowherds failed to do so.
The following morning we were to ride up the mountain to the Sagro Eremo.

Convent hours are early, and soon after the dawn we had convoyed our female companion down the hill to the little _forestieria_ for breakfast, where the _padre forestieraio_ gave us the best coffee we had had for many a day.