Municipal progress in Italy is something you've not prepared for somehow.

I daresay if we only knew it, they're thinking of lighting this town with electricity, and the Board of Aldermen are considering contracts for cable cars." "Do not inquire, Alexander," begged momma, but the Senator had fallen behind with Mr.Bebbini in earnest conversation, and we gathered that its import was entirely modern.
It was our first Italian church and it was impressive, for a President of the French Republic had just fallen to the knife of an Italian assassin, and from the altar to the door San Lorenzo was in mourning and in penance.

Masses for his soul's repose had that day been said and sung; near the door hung a request for the prayers of all good Christians to this end.

Many of the grave-eyed people that came and went were doubtless about this business, but one, I know, was there on a private errand.

He prayed at a chapel aside, kneeling on the floor beside the railings, his cap in his hands, grasping it just as the peasant in The Angelus grasps his.