ith
her, was on the other side of the Virgin in the humble attitude of
supplication. Nicolas Nerli was one of the chiefest citizens of the
Republic; seeing he had never spoken against the laws, and because he
had never regarded the poor nor such folk as the great and powerful
condemn to fine and exile, nothing had lowered in the estimation of the
Magistrates the high repute he had won in their eyes by reason of his
great riches.

Returning one winter evening later than usual to his Palace, he was
surrounded on the threshold by a band of half-naked mendicants who held
out their hands and asked alms.

He repulsed them with hard words. But hunger making them as fierce and
bold as wolves, they formed a circle round him, and begged him for bread
in hoarse, lamentable voices. He was just stooping to pick up stones to
throw at them when he saw one of his serving-men coming, carrying on his
head a basketful of loaves of black bread, intended for the stablemen,
kitchen helpers and gardeners.

He signed to the pantler to approach, and diving both hands into the
basket, tossed the loaves to the starving wretches. Then entering the
house, he went to bed and fell asleep. In the night, he was smitten
with apoplexy and died so suddenly he believed himself still in his bed
when he saw, in a place "as dark as Erebus," St. Michael the Archangel
shining in the brightness that issued from his own presence.

Balance in hand, the Archangel was engaged in filling the scales.
Recognizing in the scale that hung lowest certain jewels belonging to
widow women that he had in pledge, a great heap of clippings from pieces
he had filched dishonestly, and sundry very fine gold coins which were
unique and which he had acquired by usury or fraud, Nicolas Nerli
comprehended it was his own life, now come to an end, that St. Michael
was at that instant weighing before his eyes.

"Good Sir!" he said, "good St. Michael! if you put in the one scale all
the lucre I have gotten in my life, set in the other, if it please you,
the noble foundations whereby I have so splendidly shown my piety.
Forget not the Duomo of Santa Maria Novella, to which I contributed a
good third; nor my Hospital beyond the walls, that I built entirely out
of my own pocket."

"Never fear, Nicolas Nerli," answered the Archangel; "I will forget
nothing."

And with his own heavenly hands he set in the lighter scale the Duomo of
Santa Maria Novella and the Hospital with its frieze a