yet been resolved.

She lowered her eyes to the ground, and folded her hands. She was by now
quite composed again, her habitual sorrowful self.

"Let be," she said. "Let the wench depart. So that she goes we may count
ourselves fortunate."

"Fortunate, I think, is she," said I. "Fortunate to return to the world
beyond all this--the world of life and love that God made and that St.
Francis praises. I do not think he would have praised Mondolfo, for I
greatly doubt that God had a hand in making it as it is to-day. It is
too... too arid."

O, my mood was finely rebellious that May morning.

"Are you mad, Agostino?" gasped my mother.

"I think that I am growing sane," said I very sadly. She flashed me one
of her rare glances, and I saw her lips tighten.

"We must talk," she said. "That girl..." And then she checked. "Come
with me," she bade me.

But in that moment I remembered something, and I turned aside to look
for my friend Rinolfo. He was moving stealthily away, following the road
Luisina had taken. The conviction that he went to plague and jeer at
her, to exult over her expulsion from Mondolfo, kindled my anger all
anew.

"Stay! You there! Rinolfo!" I called.

He halted in his strides, and looked over his shoulder, impudently.

I had never yet been paid by any the deference that was my due. Indeed,
I think that among the grooms and serving-men at Mondolfo I must have
been held in a certain measure of contempt, as one who would never come
to more manhood than that of the cassock.

"Come here," I bade him, and as he appeared to hesitate I had to repeat
the order more peremptorily. At last he turned and came.

"What now, Agostino?" cried my mother, setting a pale hand upon my
sleeve

But I was all intent upon that lout, who stood there before me shifting
uneasily upon his feet, his air mutinous and sullen. Over his shoulder I
had a glimpse of his father's yellow face, wide-eyed with alarm.

"I think you smiled just now," said I.

"Heh! By Bacchus!" said he impudently, as who would say: "How could I
help smiling?"

"Will you tell me why you smiled?" I asked him.

"Heh! By Bacchus!" said he again, and shrugged to give his insolence a
barb.

"Will you answer me?" I roared, and under my display of anger he looked
truculent, and thus exhausted the last remnant of my patience.

"Agostino!" came my mothers voice in remonstrance, and such is the power
of habit that for a moment it controlled me and subd