wer for
him now but in patience.

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE.

MONNA BRIGIDA'S CONVERSION.

When Romola said that some one else expected her, she meant her cousin
Brigida, but she was far from suspecting how much that good kinswoman
was in need of her. Returning together towards the Piazza, they had
descried the company of youths coming to a stand before Tessa, and when
Romola, having approached near enough to see the simple little
contadina's distress, said, "Wait for me a moment, cousin," Monna
Brigida said hastily, "Ah, I will not go on: come for me to Boni's
shop,--I shall go back there."

The truth was, Monna Brigida had a consciousness on the one hand of
certain "vanities" carried on her person, and on the other of a growing
alarm lest the Piagnoni should be right in holding that rouge, and false
hair, and pearl embroidery, endamaged the soul. Their serious view of
things filled the air like an odour; nothing seemed to have exactly the
same flavour as it used to have; and there was the dear child Romola, in
her youth and beauty, leading a life that was uncomfortably suggestive
of rigorous demands on woman. A widow at fifty-five whose satisfaction
has been largely drawn from what she thinks of her own person, and what
she believes others think of it, requires a great fund of imagination to
keep her spirits buoyant. And Monna Brigida had begun to have frequent
struggles at her toilet. If her soul would prosper better without them,
was it really worth while to put on the rouge and the braids? But when
she lifted up the hand-mirror and saw a sallow face with baggy cheeks,
and crows'-feet that were not to be dissimulated by any simpering of the
lips--when she parted her grey hair, and let it lie in simple Piagnone
fashion round her face, her courage failed. Monna Berta would certainly
burst out laughing at her, and call her an old hag, and as Monna Berta
was really only fifty-two, she had a superiority which would make the
observation cutting. Every woman who was not a Piagnone would give a
shrug at the sight of her, and the men would accost her as if she were
their grandmother. Whereas, at fifty-five a woman was not so very old--
she only required making up a little. So the rouge and the braids and
the embroidered berretta went on again, and Monna Brigida was satisfied
with the accustomed effect; as for her neck, if she covered it up,
people might suppose it was too old to show, and, on the contrary, with
th