It is mixed with, oil, and baked in a flat pan .-- _Translators Note_.] "Strangers, who wish to talk with our Saint," she said to Maria.

She did not, like her husband, say "Fra Benedetto," she called him "the Saint." "But not to his face," she declared, crimsoning, "because it vexes him." "No, he does not really get angry, because he is a saint, but he begs very earnestly not to be called thus." In the large, dilapidated church--which, "one Sunday or another, will crush us all, like so many rats," the hostess said--there were only the two invalids and their party.

The sick man and girl had been laid on the floor exactly in the centre of the church, with two pillows under their heads.

Their companions, on their knees, were singing psalms, and, without looking at the new-comers, continued their devotions.

"Probably they have brought them to be blessed by the Saint," said the hostess under her breath.