f great comfort; for Pierino--she could not call him
by the new name--would need such loving care; already the mother's pulse
beat more tranquilly, and she almost smiled her gratitude in the
large-hearted friar's face.

Then Fra Gianmaria, his mentor, seeing that the boy had gained courage,
came also to a seat beside Donna Isabella, with a look of radiant
congratulation; for he had been the boy's teacher ever since the little
lad had passed beyond the limits of Don Ambrogio's modest attainments.
Although she had resented the power of Fra Gianmaria over Pierino, she
was proud of the confidence of the learned friar in her child; already
she began to teach herself to accept pride in the place of the lowlier,
happier, daily love she must learn to do without. Her face grew colder
and more composed; Don Ambrogio gave her a nod of approval.

"It _is_ Pierino!" the bare-legged Beppo proclaimed, pushing his way
between dignitaries and elegant nobles and taking a position, in
wide-eyed astonishment, in front of the pulpit, where he could watch
every movement of his quondam school-fellow, whose words carried no
meaning to his unlearned ears. But his heart throbbed with sudden
loyalty in seeing his comrade the centre of such a festa; Beppo would
stay and help him to get fair play, if he should need it, since it was
well known that Pierino could not fight, for all his Latin!

But the little fellow in robe and cowl had neither eyes nor thoughts for
his vast audience when he once gathered courage to begin--no memory for
the pride of his teachers, no perception of his mother's yearning;
shrinking and timid as he was, the first voicing of his own thought, in
his childish treble voice, put him in presence of a problem and banished
all other consciousness. It was merely a question to be met and
answered, and his wonderful reasoning faculty stilled every other
emotion. His voice grew positive as his thought asserted itself; his
learning was a mystery, but argument after argument was met and
conquered with the quoted wisdom of unanswerable names.

One after another the great men left the choir and came down into the
area before the pulpits, that they might lose nothing.

One after another the Frari chose out champions to confute the
child-philosopher, but he was armed on every side; and the childish
face, the boyish manner and voice lent a wonderful charm to the words he
uttered, which were not eloquent, but absolutely dispassionate and