The Argosy — page 290: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

273 A.FREAK OF FORTUNE. An Incident in the Life of Pio LNono. By MARGARET HowirTT. T was an afternoon in last October. The rain came down in torrents, and the wind whistled through the bare brick corridors of the sreat monastic-like building of the Villa Griinwald, in the wild hill- town of Monte del Caccia, which, perched aloft on one of the peaks of the Sabine Hills, within sight of Rome, was yet a good half-day’s distance from that city. JI sat and shivered in the large barely-fur- nished saloon with my hostess the Signora Giulia, who, there being neither fireplace nor stove in this her country residence, sat huddled up in a fur cloak and felt slippers. She looked very disconsolate, and busied herself in reckoning up the time in her pocket ‘‘ Diario Romano”’ till All Saints’ Day, the festival when, according to old-established custom, she returned to Rome. Earlier than that date she could not or would not go. Then servants, beds, bedding and half the furni- ture accompanied their mistress to her town residence ; and the ample, but at that season somewhat cheerless and comfortless villa: the pride and ornament of lofty Monte del Caccia, where it stood looking out over the broad Campagna, with its pillared and pedimented front, like a white marble temple: remained deserted, save for the sumewhat lax supervision of a neighbouring vine-dresser. All, however, was safe from plunder or spoliation, for the Signora Giulia was adored by the wild population as half a saint. She would have been a whole saint, but for one little circumstance—she was not of Italian, but of German origin. Still, although she was the daughter of a celebrated northern painter, and the widow of a German sculptor, Herr Grunwald, yet she had lived more than half her life in Italy, and was a devout Catholic. The hot papalint race of Monte del Caccia did not believe more blindly than she did in the infallibility of the Holy Father. They were quite agreed that the insurgents from Florence were not Romani but Pagani; and they had faith in the restoration of the temporal power, because the good signora prayed for it day and night. So she was in very good odour there; together with her only son, the young padrone, the Signor Frederigo. He had been brought up amongst them, was quite an Italian, and worthy to be the syndic of Monte del Caccia. For all this, however, the house was best known as the Casa Tedesca. | The wind blew and the rain still poured down, but the Signora Giulia, being a lively lady, and having satisfactorily terminated her calculations, suddenly sprang up, saying : VOL. XVIII. T GOMNGOOO CO am