no idea of
letting a little matter of this kind stand in his way, and he told his
wife, Pica, that the baby was not to be John, but Francis or
Francesca. And Francis he was.

The neighbours didn't like it at all. Why should Pietro set himself up
to be so much better than other folks that he must needs invent a name
for his baby? In what was his baby better than any of theirs? And so
forth. Oh, Assisi was a very natural little town! From his babyhood
these neighbours sat in judgment on little Francis. There was nothing
much about him that pleased them. They disapproved of his dress, which
was rich and fine, and always according to the latest fashion; of his
idle, free, careless ways, of his handsome face, of his superabundance
of pocket-money.

"Your son lives like a prince," a neighbour said once to Pica.

"What is that to you!" retorted Pica, "our son does indeed live like a
prince. Have patience, the day may come when he will live like the Son
of God."

But in truth that day seemed long in coming, and the neighbours might
well be forgiven when they said among themselves that young Francis
Bernardone was being utterly spoiled. It was quite true. Frank, gay,
good-tempered, easily led, fond of all kinds of beauty and soft
living, the life of indulgence and ease and pleasure that he was
brought up in was not the one that would best fit him for the battle
of life. Pietro was rich, and he was also exceeding proud of his
handsome gay son. It delighted him more than anything else to hear
people say that he looked like a prince of royal blood, and he denied
him nothing that money could procure.

[Sidenote: _Young Manhood._]

As he grew up into young manhood, Francis nominally assisted his
father in his business as cloth merchant. His duties, however, were
very light, and he was known more as a leader among the gay youth of
Assisi than as a rising business man. He was always chosen as the
leader of the sumptuous feasts that the young men of that era wiled
away the evening hours with. After the feast was over, Francis used to
lead his band out into the streets, and there under those glorious
starry skies they finished the night singing the then popular love
songs of France and Italy. As Francis was intensely musical, and
possessed a very fine voice, he was indispensable at these revelries.

He was almost twenty-five before he had his first serious thought. Up
to then life had been an enchanted dream. Francis, with his h