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Show JAN-AUDIENCE WITH POPE LEO j TWO UNPRETENTIOUS TRAVEL- I ERS HIGHLY HONORED. I i ' 'A Privilege That Is Granted to But Few Most Difficult to Gain Admission. Ad-mission. This is interesting the manner in which two unpretentious and unercden-tialed unercden-tialed tourists came to have audience of Pope Leo XIII. As it is a most dif- j licult honor to attain, even by crowned j heads and diplomats, the narration may encourage the ordinary sightseer I , says the Lady's World. For obvious j reasons I withhold the real names of j the privileged ones, but vouch for the facts. Mr. S. is a retired man of business, busi-ness, shrewd and kindly, whilst his wife i tall, matronly, with soft brown . . eyes. It may be as well to mention these qualities, that the elements for j :'Jce-.psful imitation may at least be , I recognized. 1 cannot do better than give the story as dot-c-ly as I can in the I ciy words of Mrs. S. "P.oth my husband and myself are very fond of traveling, and. about a ! j couple of years ago, went to Italy :n j , the general care of agency. As i sion as we could, after reaching Pome, we went, of course, to St. JVter's. to whi.-h we returned again and again. I After one of these visits there was a j flight shower which kept us waiting in I the portico. 1 intended next to proceed to a place not far from St. Piter's, as I understand, where I mi ant I i inake a I small purchase Standing beside me, among those who were waiting till the shower passed, was a beautiful, tho-ightfui-looking lady. I r.sked her if she could direct me to . With a pleasant Mnile she gave me all direc-! direc-! 'ions, but woman-like we branched off into talk about something else., so that when the hnwr was over I 'had quit? forgotten the directions, and. apologizing:, aslcd her to be good enough to repat them. 'I am afraid that after all you would go astray," she said, speaking English easily, but with jusl a.n accent: 'there are many I little turnings which are crplexing to I a ttrar.ger. If you will permit, I shall j be very glad to take you there.' "Of course I thanked her most gratefully, grate-fully, and we stroiled forth together. As we went along she asked me what I had seen in Home, giving many a useful use-ful hint of what was -worth seeing. I 'Have you seen His Holiness?' she inquired in-quired at length. I had not. Would I like to see him? It would, of course, be an unbounded delight to us, but not ' a thing to be expected. 'Do not say that.' she said, with a winsome smile; 'if you really wish it. I think I might manage it.' On expressing again what a pleasure it would be to us, sthe quietly said: 'Well, meet me again at the same spot in the portico of St. Peter's to-morrow to-morrow morning at 11, and we shall see what can be done.' We thankfully promised, and. having reached the place I wanted, we parted from our ubliging friend. "Next morning w? were promptly at our place in the portico, and there was the lady. After the usual greetings, she took us along to the entranoe of the Vatican, and led us past the romantically ro-mantically uniformed papal guard. The guard saluted the lady: wherever we went Hhe was saluted by soldiers and liveried servants, priests making a low and reverent obeisame. She was evidently evi-dently of high degree and well known. ' "So we were led through corridors on corridors (there are said to 1,000 i rooms in the Vatican, you know i which is not exactly correct, but nearly i so), till, through a line of bowing foot- j men. we came to a major domo stand- ! ing by a door just like all the other doors we had passed. A few words from her in Italian and we .were admitted ad-mitted to the presence of a cardinal I do not know his name, but he was a fine specimen of a man. She explained that she had brought some friends in the hope they might be able to see His Holiness. With a courteous bow and motion of the head the cardinal signed to us to be seated, while he went to see if the Holy Father was free to re-ceice re-ceice us. On returning he expressed his deep regret that His Holiness was too indisposed to see ani-one that day, but he hoped to have a reception on Friday a few days later when he trusted he would have the pleasure of receiving us. Our lady guide condoled 1 with us. The health of the Holy ' Father had not been good of late; it was a disappointment, but only for a few j days. If we would again, on Friday, at such an hour, meet her in the por tico as before. Fine would have pleasure in introducing us to His Holiness. "We thanked her most gratefully, you may be sure; hers was kindness such as rarely fails to the lot of the stranger in the strange land. So she led us out, again saluted, and bowed to t all. Before parting 1 naturally asked her from whom we had the honor of receiving so much kindness, but, with a smile, she merely said that did not matter, and bade us s:ood-by. "We were before her at he portico on Friday morning, but she came prompt to the moment. Owing to the state of His Holiness' health the purposed reception re-ception had to be postponed to the following Tuesday. But, the cardinal said, if he had the name and address of the English friends, he would see that the;- had cards for the reception then. Our names were accordingly written down, with the hotel where we were staying. "Next day, during dinner at the hotel, ho-tel, I was called out to meet , two gor- HeuiiK loourieii. wiin two great envelopes, enve-lopes, sealed. They were our invitation cards, accompanied with full instruction instruc-tion as to the dress to be worn, black lace affairs for me, dres suit for my husband, together with a sketch of the usual ceremonies. "According to instructions, we presented pre-sented ourselves with our cards at the Vatican ;n d"e course, and 'were led into a moderately-sized hall, where several sev-eral other people were waiting. After a short delay some ushers entered, then a frail man, with clear, waxv complexion, com-plexion, and beautiful calm eyes; behind be-hind him came several cardinals, as. I took them to be. His Holiness walked to the center of the hall, everyone bowing bow-ing low or kneeling; with uplifted hand he uttered a few words of blessing in Latin. The cardinal we had spoken with be. jre then introduced each visitor vis-itor by name, with an explanatory suggestion sug-gestion or two, just enough to give His Holiness the connecting link, as it were, for he seemed to have mastered all details beforehand. When he came to us we bowed low. but did not kneel. Giving us his hand, with a ' gentle, charming smile, he asked if we had any children. I answered that we had several. "They are all walking. I trust.' asked His Holiness, 'in the right way?' I said I believed they were, whereupon, with a courteous inclination of the : neck, he passed on to the next group, j When the circle had been thus complet- j ed, he again went into the middle of J the hall, .and. in French, offered up a simple, earnest prayer, and slowly "withdrew. I could not but admire his wisdom and good taste in putting the question to me as he did about the children; it left me to my own interpretation interpre-tation as to what was 'the right way,' which, being a Protestant, might have been something different from his idea. There was diplomacy in the manner, no doubt, but there was large charity also in the matter. "So. what a few days earlier we would have declared to be a thing impossible, im-possible, was accomplished. Tnat evening even-ing a quietly-appointed carriage drew up at our hotel, and we were inquired i for. It was our mysterious lady friend, j She asked how the reception had gone, I how we liked it, what we thought of ; His Holiness, etc. Could she be of any ; further use to us in Rome? We thanked j. hev, but said we were departing in a couple of days. It was impossible for j us to tell how highly we valued the I great favors she had done us, and we ) trusted she would yield to our pressing j wish to know her name. Hut slie only I gave the quietly merry little smile again, a-nd said, '11 n'importe!' and drove off. "The proprietor of the hotel, who had got a glimpse of her, said she was the Pope's sister! Whether so or not.I cannot can-not tell." |