re gained
quite a host of sympathizers. The girl was now shunned, ostentatiously,
carefully shunned. Even La Testolina was shy of her. But, bless you, she
saw nothing of it--or cared nothing. She chattered to her grossly
deceived husband, went (nominally, you may be sure!) confessing to the
grossly deceiving friar, she cooed to her baby, warbled her little
songs, looked handsome, carried herself nobly, as if she were the
Blessed Virgin herself, no less. This could not be endured: a thousand
tongues were ready to shoot at her, and would have shot but for fear of
old Baldassare's grim member--reputed forked. While he was in the way,
fat-headed fool, there was no moral glow to be won by a timely word. The
tongues lay itching; two or three barren women in the Via Stella were
hoarding stones.

Then, just about the time when the prior of the Carmelites bid Fra
Battista send him the young woman, Baldassare took the road for a round
of chaffer which might keep him out of Verona a week. The Via Stella
felt, and Fra Battista knew, that the chance had come.

IV

THE HARVEST OF LITTLE EASE

Verona, stormy centre of strife, whose scarred grey face still wears a
blush when viewed from the ramp of the Giusti garden, was in those times
a place of short and little ease. The swords were never rusty. A warning
clang from the belfry, two or three harsh strokes, the tall houses
disgorged, the streets packed; Capulet faced Montague, Bevilacqua caught
Ridolfi by the throat, and Della Scala sitting in his hall knew that he
must do murder if he would live a prince. It seems odd that the suckling
of a little shopkeeper should lead to such issues; but so it was. And
thus it was.

On the morning of Baldassare's setting-out for the Mantuan road, La
Testolina--at that time much and unhealthily in Fra Battista's
hire--came breathless to the Via Stella. Craning her quick head round
the door-post, she saw Vanna sitting all in cool white (for the weather
was at the top of summer), stooped over her baby, happy and calm as
always, and fingering her breast that she might give the little tyrant
ease of his drink. That baby was a glutton. "Hist, Vanna, hist!" La
Testolina whispered; and Vanna looked up at her with a guarded smile, as
who should say, "Speak softer, my dear, lest Cola should strangle in
his swallow."

But La Testolina's eyes were like pin-points, centring all her alarms.

"You must come to the Carmelites, Vanna. There is a gre