Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/255

 And then San Luigi was very grieved; but most of all because the gardeners would lose their places. So he asked San Sebastiano if he could not do something for them.

Then San Sebastiano said that they would be very pleased and quite happy if San Luigi would show himself to them, for they were most respectable men, and pious into the bargain; neither had they sworn nor used bad words.

But San Luigi was so modest that he did not like to show himself alone, and he held out his hands, the one to San Sebastiano and the other to San Pancrazio, saying:

"My friends—if you allow me to say so—dear 'Bastiano—dear Pancrazio—who have both been so kind to me, let us all show ourselves, and then I will give them back the lilies."

So they called Iriello and mounted upon his insteps again, and then a silver light, more bright than the moon, beamed from them, and the gardeners saw in the midst of the blaze the great angel by the magnolia tree, and the three saints standing in front of him—Sand Luigi in the middle, with San Sebastiano on the right hand and San Pancrazio on his left hand, with their arms round each other. Then the gardeners fell on their knees and returned thanks for this vision; and, as the angel spread his wings and rose from the ground, San Luigi made the sign of the cross over the garden. And the men stood amazed and watched till the brightness seemed to be only a tiny star; and so the three saints went back with Iriello into heaven.

And after they had disappeared the gardeners saw that the lily-beds were full of flowers more beautiful than had ever been seen before. But when the thieves brought their stolen flowers to the Church of San Luigi in the Via Carolina they were nothing but sticks and dirty weeds.

And the three saints are the most friendly together now, because San