the rich
and careless grace of her attire might have raised in his mind, it had
certainly not given his innate Greek good taste the inclination to
laugh and weep at once, which he felt at this specimen of the tasteless
fashion of an artificial and decaying civilisation. Her gown was stuffed
out behind in a fashion which provoked from the dirty boys who lay about
the steps, gambling for pistachios on their fingers, the same comments
with which St. Clement had upbraided from the pulpit the Alexandrian
ladies of his day. The said gown of white silk was bedizened, from waist
to ankle, with certain mysterious red and green figures at least a foot
long, which Philammon gradually discovered to be a representation, in
the very lowest and ugliest style of fallen art, of Dives and Lazarus;
while down her back hung, upon a bright blue shawl, edged with
embroidered crosses, Job sitting, potsherd in hand, surrounded by his
three friends--a memorial, the old priest whispered, of a pilgrimage
which she had taken a year or two before, to Arabia, to see and kiss the
identical dunghill on which the patriarch had sat.

Round her neck hung, by one of half a dozen necklaces, a manuscript of
the Gospels, gilt-edged and clasped with jewels; the lofty diadem of
pearls on the head carried in front a large gold cross; while above and
around it her hair, stiffened with pomatum, was frizzled out half a foot
from a wilderness of plaits and curls, which must have cost some hapless
slave-girl an hour's work, and perhaps more than one scolding, that very
morning.

Meekly, with simpering face and downcast eyes, and now and then a
penitent sigh and shake of the head and pressure of her hand on her
jewelled bosom, the fair penitent was proceeding up the steps, when she
caught sight of the priest and the monk, and turning to them with an
obeisance of the deepest humility, entreated to be allowed to kiss the
hem of their garments.

'You had far better, madam,' said Philammon, bluntly enough, 'kiss the
hem of your own. You carry two lessons there which you do not seem to
have learnt yet.'

In an instant her face flashed up into pride and fury. 'I asked for your
blessing, and not for a sermon. I can have that when I like.'

'And such as you like,' grumbled the old priest, as she swept up the
steps, tossing some small coin to the ragged boys, and murmuring to
herself, loud enough for Philammon's hearing, that she should certainly
inform the confessor, a