gates she blindly went,
and all the pack opened their music upon her. Stones flew, but words
flew faster and stuck more deep. The mob, as she blundered through the
streets, shuffling, gasping, stumbling at her caught gown, dry-eyed,
open-mouthed, panting her terror, her bewilderment, her shame and
amaze--the mob, I say, dizzied about her like a cloud of wasps; yet they
had in them what wasps have not--voices primed by hatred to bay her mad.
There was no longer any doubt for her: the pittanciar's word (which had
not been "piece") was tossed from pavement to pavement, from balcony to
balcony, out at every open door, shot like slops from every leaning
casement, and hissed in her ears as it flew. It was a mad race. The
Franciscans tucked up their frocks and discarded stones, that they might
run and shout the more freely. The Dominicans soon tired: their end was
served. The cloistered orders were out of condition; the secular clergy
came to weary of what was, after all, but a matter for the mendicants.
The common people, however, had the game well in hand. They headed her
off the narrow streets, where safety might have been, and kept her to
the Lung' Adige. Round the great S the river makes she battled her blind
way, trying for nothing, with wits for nothing, without hope, or
understanding, or thought. She ran, a hunted woman, straight before her,
and at last shook off the last of her pursuers by San Zeno. Stumbling
headlong into a little pine-wood beyond the gates, she fell, swooned,
and forgot.

It was near dark when she opened her loaded eyes--that is, there was no
moon, but a great concourse of stars, which kept the night as a long
time of dusk. The baby was awake, too, groping for food and whimpering a
little. She sat up to supply him: though in that act her brain swam, it
is probable the duty saved her. Fearing to faint again, she dared not
allow herself to think; for children must be fed though their mothers
are stoned from the gates. Vanna nursed him till he dropped asleep, and
sat on with her thoughts and troubles. Happily for her, he had turned
these to other roads than the Lung' Adige. She knew that if he was to be
fed again she must feed also.

V

THE MIRACLE OF THE PEACH-TREE

Directly you were outside the Porta San Zeno the peach-trees began--acre
by acre of bent trunks, whose long branches, tied at the top, took
shapes of blown candle-flames: beyond these was an open waste of bents
and juniper sc