The girl's name
was Paolina Foscarelli.
It is probable that in due time and season the reader may become
better acquainted with Paolina. But at present there is no need of
troubling him with more particulars respecting her than the above,
save to mention that, having industriously and successfully
completed the greater portion of her task in the churches within the
city, she had determined to make her first visit to the strange old
Basilica of St. Apollinare in Classe, on that same Ash Wednesday
morning. She did not purpose beginning her task there on that day;
but intended merely to reconnoitre the ground, look to the needful
preparations that had been made for her work, and ascertain how far
the spot was within her powers of walking.
Paolina, too, had felt that the morning of Ash Wednesday was a
favourable time for the first experiment of an undertaking that a
little alarmed her. For she also had calculated that on such a
morning she should be little likely to meet anybody. It was just
about six o'clock when Paolina started on her proposed walk; and she
passed through the Porta Nuova, therefore, a little more than half-
an-hour before Ludovico and his companion passed, travelling in the
same direction.
The road, which it was necessary for her to follow in order to reach
St. Apollinare in Classe, is the same for the whole of the distance
between the city and the ancient church as that which Ludovico and
Bianca would follow to reach the celebrated pine forest.
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