note: _A Dinner Party._]

Once, when passing through Rome, Francis was asked by the chief of a
powerful house to dinner. As he was going into the palace of the
noble, he descried a number of poor people congregated in the court,
to whom food was being distributed. Unable to resist the opportunity,
he went down and sat among them! Matthew de Rubeis, his host, was
looking out of the window and saw this, so he came out and joined him,
saying--

"Brother Francis, since you will not come to me, I must come and sit
with you." And with the most courtly air he announced to the
astonished crowd that he and Francis would eat with them.

After that dinner, during which no doubt Francis expounded his
doctrines, Matthew de Rubeis was enrolled in the "New Militia." He was
the first Tertiary in Rome.

[Sidenote: _Little Rose._]

Little Rose, though not actually a contemporary of Francis, is always
reckoned in as one of the first Tertiaries. She was one of those
children who seem born with deep religious feeling. She always, from
her earliest dawning intelligence, loved God with all her heart and
soul. She was a beautiful child, very lively in disposition, and she
loved to go out into the streets and sing hymns. Before she was ten
years old, she began to preach against those who tried to undermine
the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the chief was the German
Emperor, Frederick II. The Archbishop of the town had written a letter
warning his people against the dangers that beset them, and nowhere
did his appeal take deeper root than in the heart of little Rose.
She, childlike, spoke out boldly what her friends were thinking in
their hearts. Standing in the street, on a large stone, she preached
that the Emperor was an enemy of the true faith, and must be resisted,
and that the standard of the faith must be kept high at all costs.
Those who thought just so encouraged her, but those who were staunch
supporters of the wicked Emperor went to the Prefect of the town, who
belonged to their party, and declared--

"If you do not send away Rose and her parents, we will drive you away
yourself."

The Prefect was frightened. He sent for Rose and her parents, and when
they appeared he ordered them, on pain of being cast into prison, and
having their goods confiscated, to leave the town. It was then the
middle of winter, snow had been falling for some days, and the roads
were nearly impassable. The parents begged to have the sentence