rstood not one word.
True, she blushed a little, but that was because a prior was talking to
her: her honest grey eyes were quite untroubled, her smile as tender as
ever. She spoke as one deprecating temerity--that she should speak at
all to so great a man--and by no means any judgment.

"I am only a poor girl, reverend prior," said she, "most ignorant and
thick-witted. Pray, what have I and my baby to do with these high
matters of Fra Battista's error?"

The prior grew angry. "Tush, my woman," he grunted, "I beg you to drop
the artless. It is out of place here. Let me look at the youngster."

"Yes, yes, mistress, let us see the child," said Fra Corinto, who
croaked like a nightingale in June.

Vanna moved forward on a light foot. "Willingly, reverend fathers," said
she. "He is a fine child, they all say, and reputed the image of his
father." A sublime utterance, full of humoursome matter, if it had been
a time for humours.

But it was not. La Testolina could not contain her virtuous
indignation--for who is so transcendently righteous as your rascal for
once in the right?

"Hey, woman!" she cried shrilly, "what grossness is this? Do you think
the whole city don't know about you?"

Vanna turned quivering. "And what is it that the whole city knows but
does not say, if you please?"

The prior wagged helplessly his hands. Like Pilate, he would have washed
off the business if he could. He looked at the two women. Eh, by the
Lord! there would be a scene. But the whole thing was too impudent a
fraud: there must be an end of it. He caught Fra Corinto's eyes and
raised his brows. Fra Corinto was his jackal--here was his cue. He went
swiftly to the door, set it open, came back and caught Vanna roughly by
the shoulder. He turned her shocked face to the open door, and his dry
voice grated horribly upon her ears.

"Out with you, piece!" was what he said; and Vanna reeled.

For a full minute she gaped at him for a meaning; his face taught the
force of his words only too well. She sobbed, threw up her high head,
bent it, like Jesus, for the cross, and fled.

The old porter leered by his open gates. "He! he! They are all outside,"
he chuckled--"Magpies and Dusty-hoods, Parvuses, Minors and Minims,
Benets, and Austins, every cowl in Verona! Come along, my handsome
girl, you must move briskish this day!"

She heard the hoarse muttering of the men, and, a worse poison for good
ears, the shrill venom of the women. Out of the