e beggars passed on by Fra Gervasio, and
lastly came they back to him, to receive from his hands a piece of
money--a grosso, of which he held the bag himself.

On the day of which I write, as I stood there gazing down upon that mass
of misery, marvelling perhaps a little upon the inequality of fortune,
and wondering vaguely what God could be about to inflict so much
suffering upon certain of His creatures, to cause one to be born into
purple and another into rags, my eyes were drawn by the insistent stare
of two monks who stood at the back of the crowd with their shoulders to
the wall.

They were both tall men, and they stood with their cowls over their
tonsures, in the conventual attitude, their hands tucked away into the
ample sleeves of their brown habits. One of this twain was broader than
his companion and very erect of carriage, such as was unusual in a monk.
His mouth and the half of his face were covered by a thick brown beard,
and athwart his countenance, from under the left eye across his nose and
cheek, ran a great livid scar to lose itself in the beard towards the
right jaw. His deep-set eyes regarded me so intently that I coloured
uncomfortably under their gaze; for accustomed as I was to seclusion, I
was easily abashed. I turned away and went slowly along the gallery to
the end; and yet I had a feeling that those eyes were following me, and,
indeed, casting a swift glance over my shoulder ere I went indoors, I
saw that this was so.

That evening at supper I chanced to mention the matter to Fra Gervasio.

"There was a big bearded capuchin in the yard at alms-time to-day--" I
was beginning, when the friar's knife clattered from his hand, and he
looked at me with eyes of positive fear out of a face from which the
last drop of blood had abruptly receded. I checked my inquiry at the
sight of him thus suddenly disordered, whilst my mother, who, as usual,
observed nothing, made a foolish comment.

"The little brothers are never absent, Agostino."

"This brother was a big brother," said I.

"It is not seemly to make jest of holy men," she reproved me in her
chilling voice.

"I had no thought to jest," I answered soberly. "I should never
have remarked this friar but that he gazed upon me with so great an
intentness--so great that I was unable to bear it."

It was her turn to betray emotion. She looked at me full and long--for
once--and very searchingly. She, too, had grown paler than was her
habit.

"A