So the efforts of the Irish priest, though very well meant,
and very urgent, and very persevering, did not meet with that success
which he anticipated.
Suddenly he stopped in the midst of the burial service, which he was
prolonging to the utmost.
"Hark!" he cried, in Italian.
"What?" they asked.
"It's a gun! It's an alarm!"
"There's no gun, and no alarm," said they.
All listened, but there was no repetition of the sound, and the priest
went on.
He had to finish it.
He stood trembling and at his wit's end. Already the men began to
throw in the earth.
But now there came a real alarm.
CHAPTER XXXI.
DISCOVERED.
The report of the pistol had startled Minnie, and for a moment had
greatly agitated her. The cry of Mrs. Willoughby elicited a response
from her to the effect that all was right, and would, no doubt, have
resulted in a conversation, had it not been prevented by Girasole.
Minnie then relapsed into silence for a time, and Ethel took a seat by
her side on the floor, for Minnie would not go near the straw, and
then the two interlocked their arms in an affectionate embrace.
"Ethel darling," whispered Minnie, "do you know I'm beginning to get
awfully tired of this?"
"I should think so, poor darling!"
"If I only had some place to sit on," said Minnie, still reverting to
her original grievance, "it wouldn't be so very bad, you know. I could
put up with not having a bed, or a sofa, or that sort of thing, you
know; but really I must say not to have any kind of a seat seems to me
to be very, very inconsiderate, to say the least of it.
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