being of sharper and more observant mind. We never had a difference except once. It was over a cherry tart—what little gluttons we were! When we quarreled about the tart our mothers divided it, and for punishment condemned us both to eat our share alone. And what do you think was the result? Neither one of us would touch it—and then we cried and made up our quarrel; it was our first and last, and we were but ten years old."
Fifi listened with glowing eyes. These little stories of his youth, long remembered, made Fifi feel as if the Holy Father were very human, after all.
The old man paused, and his expressive eyes grew dreamy as he gazed at Fifi. She brought back to him, as never before, the dead and gone time: the still, ancient little town, lying as quietly in the sunlight as in the moonlight, the peaceful life that flowed there so placidly and innocently. He seemed to hear again the murmuring of the wind in the fir trees of the old garden and the delicate cooing of the blue and white pigeons in the orchard. Once more he inhaled the aromatic scent of the burning pine cones, as Barnabas and himself, their two boyish heads together, hung over
