died away to a murmurous underflow of sound, perhaps a tongue
or two was thrust into a cheek or two, perhaps a bare shoulder shrugged
or one shock-head wagged to another. The air was sharp, beds still
warm--whose business was it? The street was left to the rats and
snuffing dogs again.

But Annina had sparks of fire in her brown eyes, and panted as she
tugged at her staylaces. It was not long before she clattered downstairs
on her clacking heels, and went to mark the cage they had gilded for her
dear Ippolita.

Those hierophants, that Collegio d'Amore (as the new style ran), bearing
in their midst the garlanded victim--Goddess at once and
Sacrifice--awoke the echoes of the streets without comment. The city
gates were open, it is true; in some churches the doors stood wide for
the first mass; they passed a priest or so just up, a friar or so,
furtive truants from their beds; then, at the edge of the Piazza del
Santo, Ippolita peeping through her curtains saw a little company of
goatherds, blanketted, brown-legged, shabby rogues, their feet white
with country dust, new in from the hills with their flocks. They blinked
to see the gay procession; but wistfully, longingly, she looked after
them from her cage. They were not so much market-stuff, per Dio! They
walked at large over bright hillsides, singing to the sky and the winds.
They were not pestered with love or fine buzzing ladies or capering
signori, who larded poor girls with compliments, and showed their teeth
most when they meant least. Ah, if she could run away! If she could hide
with them, lie on the hillsides while the goats cropped about her; lie
on her back, her hands a pillow, and sing to the sky and the winds
because she was so happy! The thought possessed her; she ached for
freedom; felt the water of desire hot in her mouth. The sleepy shepherds
huddled in their rags watched her go by; they little knew what a craving
the sight of their dusty ease had stirred in a heart whose covering was
fine silk and strung pearls. Her wrongs came back upon her like heaped
waters of a flood. That shameful bath--ah, Soul of Christ, to strip one
naked, and let souse in hot water, like a pig whose bristles must come
off! More than songs which she did not understand, more than
compliments which made her feel foolish and pictures which made her
look so, was this refined indignity. Seethed in water like a dead
pig--ah, Madonna! She arrived sulky--if so humble-minded a girl could