'ah-h.'

Then one by one they began to laugh and talk, and point with eager,
excited fingers. 'Look,' cried one, 'there is Brother Giovanni; I would
know his smile among a hundred.'

'There is that beggar who comes each day to ask for soup,' cried
another.

'And there is his dog,' shouted a third.

'Look at the maid who kneels in front,' said Fra Diamante in a hushed
voice, 'is she not as fair as any saint?'

Then suddenly there was silence, and the brothers looked ashamed of the
noise they had been making, as the prior himself looked down on them
from the steps above.

'What is all this?' he asked. And his voice sounded grave and
displeased as he looked from the wall to the crowd of eager monks. Then
he turned to Filippo. 'Are these the pictures I ordered thee to paint?'
he asked. 'Is this the kind of painting to do honour to God and to our
Church? Will these mere human figures help men to remember the saints,
teach them to look up to heaven, or help them with their prayers?
Quick, rub them out, and paint your pictures for heaven and not for
earth.'

Filippo hung his head, the crowd of admiring monks swiftly disappeared,
and he was left to begin his work all over again.

It was so difficult for Filippo to keep his thoughts fixed on heaven,
and not to think of earth. He did so love the merry world, and his
fingers, those same ten brown rascals which had got him into trouble
when he was a child, always longed to draw just the faces that he saw
every day. The pretty face of the little maid kneeling at her prayers
was so real and so delightful, and the Madonna and angels seemed so
solemn and far off.

Still no one would have pictures which did not tell of saints and
angels, so he must paint the best he could. After all, it was easy to
put on wings and golden haloes until the earthly things took on a
heavenly look.

But the convent life grew daily more and more wearisome now to Filippo.
The world, which he had been so willing to give up for a piece of good
white bread when he was eight years old, now seemed full of all the
things he loved best.

The more he thought of it, the more he longed to see other places
outside the convent walls, and other faces besides the monks and the
people who came to church.

And so one dark night, when all the brothers were asleep and the bells
had just rung the midnight hour, Fra Filippo stole out of his cell,
unlocked the convent door, and ran swiftly out into the quiet stre