Little Mary's Saturday's walk

A little patience, my dear, and I will.  I need not say that palm-trees do not grow in all the countries where there are Christians.  Even in Italy the climate does not suit them.  There is, however, one small sandy valley, open to the sea and the southern sun, on the coast of Genoa, where the date-palm is cultivated on purpose to supply Rome with branches for Palm Sunday; and I have heard it said that it is the exclusive privilege of one family living in a village on the coast to furnish these branches, because it is descended from a sailor to whom the right was granted in reward for having, by quickness and presence of mind, saved the lives of hundreds, and ensured success to the raising the immense obelisk of Egyptian granite in the Piazza di San Pietro, where it has stood ever since the days of Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who was pope from 1585 to 1590.