Page:The Italian - Radcliffe, volume 1 (1797).djvu/213

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low voice—"It was on the vigil of the Santo Marco, just after the last vesper-bell had tolled—You never was at the Santa Maria del Pianto, Signor, or you would know what a gloomy old church it has.—It was in a confessional in one of the side ailes of this church, and just after the last bell had ceased, that a person, so muffled up, that neither shape nor face could be distinguished, came and placed himself on the steps of one of the boxes adjoining the confessional chair; but if he had been as airily dressed as yourself, Signor, he might have been just as well concealed; for that dusky aisle is light­ed only by one lamp, which hangs at the end next the painted window, except when the tapers at the shrine of San Antonio happen to be burning at the other extremity, and even then the place is almost as gloomy as this vault. But that is, no doubt, contrived for the purpose, that people may not blush for the sins they confess; and in good faith, this is an accommodation which may bring more money to the poor's box, for themonks

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