1825-1826] Pilgrims at Supper 171 



with torches, and in half a minute the entire church and 

 porticos became the most brilliant scene I ever saw. 



Sunday. I am sorry you have taken at ail to heart Papa's 

 simile for himself. I think he enjoys what he sees here as 

 much or more than any of us. He has not so much pleasure 

 in the travelling itself, but he liked that better when he had 

 thrown all trouble and anxiety off his shoulders by going 

 with a vetturino. . . . 



We went last night at 1 to see the pilgrims at supper. 

 All pilgrims are fed and lodged for three days, and waited 

 on at supper by a society of ladies and gentlemen, Princesses 

 and Cardinals. We went very luckily without Papa, who 

 would have been heartily tired as it turned out, but we had 

 an amusing evening. We knocked at the door and were 

 announced as four foreign ladies, and found ourselves in a 

 great hall with tables with lamps and writing things, and a 

 few men in red gowns laughing and talking and bustling 

 backwards and forwards. There we stood helpless some 

 time, not knowing where to go; till at last the old man in 

 red who let us in, after a quantity of gabbling and gesticu- 

 lating which we could make nothing of, fairly put us out 

 into the street again and shut the door on us. By this time 

 the carriage was gone, so there we staid in the dirt and the 

 dark, till the door was opened again to let in some more 

 ladies, and we pushed in after them and followed them thro' 

 the hall and several more places, full of bustle and pilgrims 

 and soldiers, till we got upstairs to where the women pilgrims 

 were to sup. There we found two very long well lighted 

 rooms with tables down each side, and I should think some 

 hundreds of ladies without their bonnets and most of them 

 in white aprons to serve. There was a middle room besides, 

 where there was a set of women with towels on their heads, 

 listening to a sermon from a man in red. After this they 

 went on their knees, and said such a number of Ave Marias 

 that I was tired waiting to see the end, and they must have 

 wanted their suppers terribly which they did not get till 

 near ten o'clock. The Princess Doria was going about 

 directing, and the Queen of Etruria's daughter and two 



