o do him justice, he had had his share of
adventure in that sort at an early age. He had learned more out of Ovid
than from the Fathers of Divinity, you may believe. Very popular he was
in whatsoever convent he harboured, as a preacher famous all over
Lombardy and the March,--in Bergamo, in Brescia, even as far as Mantua
he had been heard of. The superior at Verona did his best to spoil him
by endearment, flattery, and indulgence; but this was difficult, since
he had been spoilt already.

He passed down the Via Stella morning and evening for a week. Morning
and evening his eyes encountered Vanna's. The third evening he smiled at
her, the fourth morning he saluted her; the fifth evening he stopped and
slipped in a gentle word; the first evening of the second week he
stopped again, and that night, La Testolina being by, there was quite a
little conversation.

La Testolina had black eyes, a trim figure, and a way of wriggling which
showed these to advantage. Fra Battista's fame and the possibility of
mischief set her flashing; she led the talk and found him apt: it was
not difficult to aim every word that it should go through and leave a
dart in Vanna's timid breast. The girl was so artless, you could see her
quiver, or feel her, at every shot. For instance, was his sanctity very
much fatigued by yesterday's sermon? _Eh, la bella predica!_ What
invocations of the saints, what heart-groping, what reachings after the
better parts of women! It was some comfort to know that a woman had a
better part at all--by the Saviour! for their handling by men gave no
hint of it. Let Fra Beato--ah, pardon, Fra Battista she should have
said--send some such arrows into men's hides! See them, for the
gross-feeding, surly, spend-all, take-all knaves that they were! One or
two she might name if she had a mind--ah! one or two in this very city
of Verona, in this very Street of the Star, who--But there! Vanna must
go and hear the Frate's next sermon, she must indeed. And if she could
take her old curm-- Pshutt! What was she saying? How she ran on! She did
indeed. Fra Battista, leaning against the lintel, kept his eyelids on
the droop, seemed to find his toes of interest. But now and again he
would look delicately up, and so sure as he did the brown eyes and the
grey seemed to swim towards each other, to melt in a point, swirl in an
eddy of the feelings, in which Vanna found herself drowning and found
such death sweet. La Testolina still ran on,