"The mandate of His Holiness, inscribed upon parchment, from which hangs the great seal of the Vatican, is safely placed among my most precious documents.

You have but destroyed the result of an hour's careful work.

I rose betimes this morning to make this copy.

I should not have allowed you to tear it, had not the writing been my own.

But I took pains to reproduce exactly the peculiar style of lettering they use in Rome, and you will do the same in your copy." Turning, the Bishop knelt for a few moments in prayer before the Madonna.