Page:Compromises (Repplier).djvu/108

 92 ceases to vex the tourist mind. An American cannot reconcile himself to marching up the church steps between two rows of mendicants, each provided with a chair, a little scaldino, and a tin cup, in which a penny rattles lustily. There is nothing casual about the appearance of these freeholders. They make no pretence—as do beggars at home—of sudden emergency or frustrated hopes. They are following their daily avocation,—the only one for which they are equipped,—and following it in a spirit of acute and healthy rivalry. To give to one and not to all is to arouse such a clamorous wail that it seems, on the whole, less stony-hearted to refuse altogether. Once inside the sacred walls, we find a small and well-selected body of practitioners hovering around the portals, waiting to exact their tiny toll when we are ready to depart. "Exact" is not too strong a word to use, for I have had a lame but comely young woman, dressed in decent black, with a black veil framing her expressive face, hold the door of the Aracœli firmly barred with one arm, while she swept the other toward me in a gesture so fine, so full of mingled entreaty and