s, wherewith she
wove garlands for the altars of the Virgin and the Saints. And all the
while she would be singing hymns in the vulgar tongue to the praise of
Jesus and Mary His Mother. In those mournful times, when the city of
Sienna was a hostel of sorrow, and a house of joy to boot, Catherine was
ever visiting the unhappy prisoners, and telling the prostitutes: "My
sisters, how fain would I hide you in the loving wounds of the Saviour!"
A maiden so pure, fired with so sweet charity, could nowhere have budded
and blossomed but at Sienna, which under all its defilements and amid
all its crimes, was still the City of the Blessed Virgin.

Apprised by the Magistrates, Catherine betook herself to the public gaol
on the morning of the day Ser Niccola Tuldo was to die. She found him
stretched on the stone floor of the dungeon, bellowing blasphemies.
Raising the white veil the blessed St. Dominic himself had come down
from Paradise to lay upon her brow, she showed the prisoner a
countenance of heavenly beauty. As he gazed at her in wonder, she leant
over him to wipe away the spume that defiled his mouth.

Ser Niccola Tuldo, turning on her eyes that still retained their savage
ferocity, cried out:

"Begone! I hate you, because you are of Sienna, the city that slays me.
Oh! Sienna, she-wolf indeed, that with her vile claws tears out the
throat of a noble gentleman of Perugia! Horrid she-wolf! unclean and
inhuman hell-hound!"

But Catherine made answer:

"Nay! brother, what is a city, what are all the cities of the earth,
beside the City of God and the holy Angels? I am Catherine, and I am
come to call you to the everlasting nuptials."

The sweet voice and beaming face shed a sudden peace and radiance over
the savage soul of Niccola Tuldo. He remembered the days of his
innocence, and cried like a child.

The sun, rising above the Apennines, was just whitening the prison walls
with its earliest rays. Catherine said:

"Look, the dawn! Up, up, my brother, for the eternal nuptials! Up, I
say!"

And raising him from the ground, she drew him into the Chapel, where Fra
Cattaneo confessed him.

Ser Niccola Tuldo then listened devoutly to the holy Mass and received
the body of Our Lord. This done, he turned to Catherine and said:

"Stay with me; do not leave me, and I shall be well, and shall die
content."

The bells began to toll the signal for the execution.

Then Catherine answered:

"Gentle brother, I will wait you