here several women of Jenne were having their
_stiacciati_ [1] baked, each having brought her own.

[Footnote 1: _Stiacciati_ a sort of very large, round cake, common
in all parts of Italy. It is made of cornflour, of wheatflour, or of
chestnut-flour, and in some places of vegetables. It is mixed with, oil,
and baked in a flat pan.--_Translators Note_.]

"Strangers, who wish to talk with our Saint," she said to Maria. She did
not, like her husband, say "Fra Benedetto," she called him "the Saint."

"But not to his face," she declared, crimsoning, "because it vexes him."
"No, he does not really get angry, because he is a saint, but he begs
very earnestly not to be called thus."

In the large, dilapidated church--which, "one Sunday or another, will
crush us all, like so many rats," the hostess said--there were only the
two invalids and their party. The sick man and girl had been laid on the
floor exactly in the centre of the church, with two pillows under their
heads. Their companions, on their knees, were singing psalms, and,
without looking at the new-comers, continued their devotions. "Probably
they have brought them to be blessed by the Saint," said the hostess
under her breath. "That is painful to him; he does not wish it. Perhaps
they will try to touch his habit by stealth, but even that is difficult
now."

The poor people stopped singing, and a woman came to ask the hostess if
it had already struck eleven o'clock? Maria answered, telling her it was
only a quarter to eleven, and then inquired about the two sick ones. The
man had been ill with fever for two years, and the girl, his sister, had
heart disease. They had come from the lowlands of Arcinazzo, a journey
of several hours, to be healed by the Saint of Jenne. A woman from
Arcinazzo, who had heart disease, had been cured some days before by
simply touching his habit. Maria and Noemi spoke to the sufferers. The
girl was confident, but the man, who was shaking with fever, seemed to
have come simply to satisfy his people, to give this a trial also. He
had suffered greatly on the journey.

"These roads lead me into the next world," he said. "I shall be healed
in that way."

A woman, his mother perhaps, burst into tears, and besought him to
pray, to commend himself to Jesus, to Mary. The two sisters withdrew,
in obedience to a summons from Giovanni; for a quarrel had broken out in
the square, between the women and the students who had passed the
Selvas on the