the softest voice, "Tessa!"

She hardly started, any more than she would have started at a soft
breeze that fanned her gently when she was needing it. She turned her
head and saw Tito's face close to her: it was very much more beautiful
than the Archangel Michael's, who was so mighty and so good that he
lived with the Madonna and all the saints and was prayed to along with
them. She smiled in happy silence, for that nearness of Tito quite
filled her mind.

"My little Tessa! you look very tired. How long have you been kneeling
here?"

She seemed to be collecting her thoughts for a minute or two, and at
last she said--

"I'm very hungry."

"Come, then; come with me."

He lifted her from her knees, and led her out under the cloisters
surrounding the atrium, which were then open, and not yet adorned with
the frescoes of Andrea del Sarto.

"How is it you are all by yourself, and so hungry, Tessa?"

"The Madre is ill; she has very bad pains in her legs, and sent me to
bring these cocoons to the Santissima Nunziata, because they're so
wonderful; see!"--she held up the bunch of cocoons, which were arranged
with fortuitous regularity on a stem,--"and she had kept them to bring
them herself, but she couldn't, and so she sent me because she thinks
the Holy Madonna may take away her pains; and somebody took my bag with
the bread and chestnuts in it, and the people pushed me back, and I was
so frightened coming in the crowd, and I couldn't get anywhere near the
Holy Madonna, to give the cocoons to the Padre, but I must--oh, I must."

"Yes, my little Tessa, you shall take them; but first come and let me
give you some berlingozzi. There are some to be had not far off."

"Where did you come from?" said Tessa, a little bewildered. "I thought
you would never come to me again, because you never came to the Mercato
for milk any more. I set myself Aves to say, to see if they would bring
you back, but I left off, because they didn't."

"You see I come when you want some one to take care of you, Tessa.
Perhaps the Aves fetched me, only it took them a long while. But what
shall you do if you are here all alone? Where shall you go?"

"Oh, I shall stay and sleep in the church--a great many of them do--in
the church and all about here--I did once when I came with my mother;
and the _patrigno_ is coming with the mules in the morning."

They were out in the piazza now, where the crowd was rather less riotous
than before, and